


Another World, Another Place, Another Time

by TheSnowMage



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood Drinking, Blow Jobs, F/F, F/M, Futanari, Multi, Original Character(s), Polyamory, Porn With Plot, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-17 10:03:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17558303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSnowMage/pseuds/TheSnowMage
Summary: After her death, Penny finds herself in another world, surrounded by seemingly familiar faces; Jaune wakes up one day to find that he's been transported into a forest on another continent, and a chance encounter with a woman named Pyrrha sends him on an adventure all his own; and Cinder sent herself back in time to stop a dark future of her own making, all the while hoping to atone for behavior past and present.This story exists because I wanted to get some practice writing smut and needed an excuse to do it.Edit as of 2/17: I have changed the title. The original was terrible. This one's not much better, but trust me: it is better.





	1. Prologue 1: Penny's Transposition

**Author's Note:**

> I needed an excuse to practice writing smut. Luckily, I managed to come up with one.  
> Oh, and don't mind the info-dump that the very start of this chapter turns into. Penny doesn't retain much of it, either.

‘I’m… awake. Someone must have salvaged my memory core, but… something’s different. Run diagnostic subroutine.’

“Is she… awake?”

The voice – familiar, yet somehow different – startled her, making her shake in the bed.

‘A… bed? Is that what I’m fee-… I can feel?’ she thought. ‘I… Why is my subroutine not working? What’s going on?’

With a bit of effort, she figured out how to open her eyes – only to close them almost immediately, unfamiliar sensation throbbing through her head.

‘Is this… pain?’ “Ow,” she mumbled, thankful that at least her voice generator worked the way she expected it to.

“Oh, are the lights too bright?” came a voice she’d never heard before. “Here, how’s that?” it asked a moment later.

She cracked open her eyes again, finding that she could open them fully without any pain. “Thank you,” she said, trying to figure out how to move her neck and face her benefactor; her servos didn’t seem to be responding in the right ways.

“Is everything all right?”

“My new body doesn’t seem to be working the way my previous one did,” she explained, blinking again. “And my programs are responding… oddly.”

“Programs?”

Finally, she figured it out, swiveling her neck to face the people standing beside her bed – and felt herself smile when she saw a familiar face. “Ruby,” she mumbled, feeling her chest and cheeks warm, joy and embarrassment alike coursing through her.

The younger woman – Ruby – blinked. Her silver eyes narrowed and she leaned towards her, causing the red accents fringing her black hair to sway. Ruby was wearing clothes the bedridden woman hadn’t seen before, however: though the high-waisted black skirt that flared around her thighs and had red frilly underpinnings was familiar, as were her red cloak, translucent stockings and her black boots with red soles, she was wearing an overbust corset outside her top, which was a long-sleeved blouse with a broad hole beneath her collar – which her corset covered, concealing nearly all of the cleavage her blouse sought to reveal.

‘She’s… bigger?’ she thought, surprise taking her smile away for a moment. ‘Her chest, for sure, but… is she taller, too?’

“She… knows me?” Ruby asked, glancing at the woman to her side.

“That’s unexpected,” the other woman said. She wore an unblemished white coat, buttoned up well enough that the bedridden woman couldn’t see the clothes beneath it, and had hair the same shade of brown as her eyes. “I suppose your presence during the ritual may have corrupted it somehow, Ms. Rose, either by implanting memories into her or by drawing her soul from a parallel world.”

“My… soul?” the woman murmured, only for her mind to catch on another point. “Wait… Don’t faunus usually only have one animal characteristic?” she asked, looking at the doctor’s vulpine ears and nine swaying tails.

“What’s a faunus?” Ruby asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Okay, this is getting confusing,” the doctor said, walking over to a side table and picking up a clipboard. “Let’s make this much, much simpler and start with the basics, yes? Assume we have none of the information you do, and we’ll make the same assumption. Now, let’s start with your name.”

“Penny Polendina,” she said, glancing over at Ruby.

“Excellent,” the doctor said, writing it down. “Is ‘Penny’ short for ‘Penelope?’”

“Ah… I’ve never asked,” Penny said, feeling her cheeks warm – another foreign sensation, which only added to the sheer confusion. She felt numb inside, something she thought she should be used to given her previous experiences.

“Very well. I am Dr. Eliza Sariel,” the doctor said. “And you seem to already know Ms. Rose, somehow,” she added, offhandedly gesturing to her. “Hmm… I’ll admit, I’m not the most sociable person,” Eliza said, glancing at Ruby. “I’m not terribly sure how to proceed with introducing someone to literally every facet of existence.”

“Well, we could talk about our species,” Ruby said, a small smile appearing on her features as Eliza made a noise of approval.

“Species?” Penny asked. “But, aren’t you, you know… human?”

“There hasn’t been a human in this world for more than ten thousand years, Ms. Polendina,” Eliza said, making Penny’s lips part and her eyes widen. “Ah, I see that’s another key difference between our worlds. Oh, that actually brings another useful topic: Ms. Polendina, what was your world named?”

“R-Remnant,” Penny mumbled, feeling dazed.

“Really? That’s… Okay, well, ours is called ‘Draekiel,’” Ruby said. “As a whole, the people on Draekiel are called ‘Varyn’, but you won’t usually hear that word. When people refer to each other, they either just call each other by their individual species, or by name. Usually,” she continued, wearing an awkward, goofy smile that was oh-so-familiar to Penny.

“All species of Varyn are capable of interbreeding, of course,” Eliza added, startling Penny and making her cheeks redden. “It’s the entire reason why scientists eventually felt the need to come up with a broadly encompassing term for our kind in the first place. This interbreeding has resulted in some oddities in our genetic structures, however, granting improvements – known as ‘boons’ – and various negative aspects – known as ‘banes’. For ease of use, they also describe the beneficial and negative aspects, respectively, of individual species. However, in addition to these boons and banes, we need to satisfy hormonal requirements to remain mentally stable.”

“What?” Penny asked, looking between the two. Eliza, tired of speaking, gestured for Ruby to continue, surprising the younger woman.

“Well, uh… Okay, so, everyone age fifteen and older needs to take in what’s known as Alpha hormones on a regular basis. This keeps them from building any Beta hormones, an excess of which causes the person to lose their ego, meaning they basically go nuts; we call this the ‘Frenzied state’. We know how long someone can go without Alpha based on what’s known as a Drive, which can be figured out by running a DNA sample through a specific test; it can even be determined prenatally. Back to Alpha hormones, they can be found in any bodily fluid, such as blood, saliva, and…” she trailed off, her blush deepening.

Ruby took a deep breath, then forced herself to continue, saying “Anyway, uh, these Drives can vary in intensity, and those with higher Drives often have more… prominent, I guess would be the word. More prominent libidos.”

“For reference, Ruby here has a High Drive, meaning she needs to take in Alpha hormones at least twice a week,” Eliza added. “I have a Low Drive, meaning I only need to do it once every three weeks.”

“T-That’s…” Penny mumbled, unable to tear her eyes away from Ruby. She found herself incapable of _not_ associating her first and dearest friend with the woman before her, making too many conflicting emotions crash through her for her to process.

“Moving on, I am what’s known as a Kitsune, though I’ve advanced to a state known as ‘Kyuubi’, which is a measure of power specific to my species,” Eliza continued, heedless of the two youths’ embarrassment. “Kitsune grow additional tails as they gain supernatural power, with the Kyuubi being regarded as the highest readily-determinable power level of our kind. As a different example, Ruby is a Dhampir; their most identifiable feature is a pair of small fangs, which are quite useful due to their need to ingest blood in order to process what’s typically referred to as a ‘human-standard diet,’” she added, gesturing to the younger woman standing beside her.

“H-Human standard?” Penny asked.

“As the doctor said earlier, there haven’t been any humans on this world for more than ten thousand years, as far as anyone can tell,” Ruby said, thankful that they could talk about something other than how she needed to regularly “sate” herself. “There’s a bunch of theories as to what happened to them, but most people think they altered their physiologies and became the first Varyn.”

“Back to the topic at hand,” Eliza said, “your species is known as a Synthoid, which is part of a subset of Varyn known as ‘natural cyborgs’, meaning their physiology is as much technological as it is biological.”

“What?” Penny asked, latching onto that last bit with all the focus she could muster. “I… I’m… I’m a real person? A-A living, breathing…” she trailed off, closing her eyes as she let herself sink back down onto the bed.

“Well, you don’t need to _breathe_ ,” Eliza corrected the despondent young woman, “but yes, you are _alive_. You have a functional circulatory system, you are capable of digesting food and drink, and you are capable of bearing children that are biologically yours.”

Penny, having drawn herself out of her funk at Eliza’s description of her biological side, blushed again at the mention of bearing children. “I… I can?” she asked. “H-How does… How does that w-work?”

“Are you unfamiliar with the mechanics of sexual intercourse?” Eliza asked, making Penny let out a squeak and pull the covers over her face to hide the blush that made her whole body feel warm. “Well, then let me begin with a description of the penis.”

“Please, don’t!” Penny exclaimed, drawing a giggle from Ruby. Slowly, encouraged by the familiar sound, she pulled the covers back, only then realizing that she was wearing a tank top and shorts. “I… I kn-know how s-sex works,” she mumbled, still blushing brightly. “I-I had a d-dictionary installed when I was made.”

“Made?” Ruby asked.

“Y-Yes,” Penny mumbled. As she’d figured out how to use her arms, she put them to use, hauling herself up until she was sitting upright. She licked her lips, feeling shaken by the amount of effort that had taken, and said, “I-I was made. I am… I _was_ a machine, a p-prototype model that w-would be capable of manif-… manifesting an Aura. A-After all, only l-living things, with souls, can have an Aura, a-and… I was a success,” she said, feeling herself blush again.

“Aura?”

*             *             *             *             *             *

Less than ten minutes later, Penny had been so overwhelmed by everything she’d learned – by _everything_ in general – that she’d passed out. A few hours after that, when she’d regained consciousness, the doctor put her through the first of many bouts of physical therapy, gaining muscle-mass that her cloned body – as she’d learned during the long discussion – had never had. It was exhausting work, despite how little she seemed to be doing; she’d nearly passed out just walking down a hallway – and that was _with_ Ruby helping her.

Still, she’d figured out a lot more about her body. There were programs and subroutines she could access, including a diagnostic function, but they were quite a bit different than what she’d gotten used to in her old body. She set both it and a self-repair subroutine to work as she sat down on the bed she’d woken up in and stared at the length of crystal before her.

“Is that… Dust?” Penny asked, making Ruby cock her head to the side. “Uh… It’s a… It’s like crystalized ‘elemental’ energy,” she tried to explain, unable to find a definition that would make sense to someone who’d only just learned what an Aura was hours ago.

“Huh. Well, yeah, actually,” Ruby said with a smile, glad to have found something even _approaching_ common ground between them. “Basically, anyway. This is magical energy attuned to an element and then stored in a crystalline form,” she explained, picking up the crystal.

“Magic…” Penny mumbled, frowning at the thought of it. “Magic… isn’t supposed to be real. Where I’m from, anyway.”

“Really? Then what’s an Aura?” Ruby asked teasingly, making Penny smile again.

“A sort of… energy that a soul puts out, one that protects its… owner, I guess would be the word. It can also be used to use Dust like… Okay, so _maybe_ it’s more like magic than I thought,” Penny said, feeling herself start to smile as Ruby giggled.

“Okay, so,” Ruby began. She cleared her throat, then extended a hand to Penny, who put hers over it. The former robot closed her eyes, surprised at the warmth she felt from the simple touch, but then forced them back open and nodded at her. “Okay, then,” Ruby mumbled, letting out a breath and drawing on the energy stored within the crystal.

Penny straightened in her seat as she felt the electricity pour into her, filling her in a way she couldn’t quite comprehend; it wasn’t anything like her recharging cycle back when she’d been in Remnant, which was what she’d been expecting. It felt more like she was a bucket, forced to stay still if it wanted to be filled with rainwater – except that she could _feel_ it, sliding along inside of her and making her whole body tingle.

It ended only a minute later, nearly as suddenly as it began, making Penny sigh contentedly. “Thank you, Ruby,” she said, only to frown sadly at the reminder.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Ruby asked, smiling gently at her.

“I… This is hard,” Penny mumbled. “I… You’re not the Ruby I remember, and it’s hard to keep that in mind because you look and sound almost exactly like her,” she said, shaking her head. “But… But I’m never going to see her again, am I? I’ll never see… I’ll never see any of them again. And… And she was there when I died, wasn’t she? Sh-She had to… had to watch…” The words left her in a raspy whisper as tears leaked from her eyes, making her gasp. “W-What is… I-I’m c-crying,” she mumbled through her sobs, wiping her cheeks dry only for more tears to wet them.

For a long moment, Ruby stood frozen beside her, torn between the desire to do something to calm her down and the knowledge that she was a _big_ part of why Penny was so distraught. Then, she stooped down and wrapped the newly-reincarnated Synthoid in a hug, startling her – for a moment; Penny returned the embrace needily as she buried her face in Ruby’s shoulder, letting her tears soak into the fabric of her cloak.

More than a minute later, as Penny pulled away from Ruby, she said, “Th-Thank you.” She hiccupped, sniffled, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, feeling a little relieved that she hadn’t gotten any mucus on Ruby; then, she was struck by how oddly mundane that thought was, given the situation she found herself in.

Ruby gave her an awkward smile and a nod. “W-Well, uh… I guess you should just get some sleep? We have to do all of this again tomorrow, after all. A-And we’ve got to make sure to teach you about our world in a way that’ll actually stick in your head. I mean, you probably don’t remember any of the stuff we dumped on you, do you?”

“I-I, uh… N-Not really,” Penny admitted with an apologetic smile, her cheeks turning pink.

“Then we’ll just need to do better next time, won’t we?” Ruby asked, eyes closing as she smiled back. “Just, uh… Get some sleep, alright? We’ll need you well-rested for tomorrow.”

“Sure thing, Ruby. A-And… Thank you. F-... For being here,” Penny mumbled, blushing brightly.

“I’ll be here as long as you need me, Penny. I promise.”

As Ruby left, Penny’s face fell again. For a few moments there – despite reminding herself otherwise – she’d forgotten that this wasn’t _her_ Ruby. So, with a sigh, she laid back and closed her eyes, trying to wonder what it would be like to dream instead of focusing on how much she hurt inside.

*             *             *             *             *             *

That first week went by in a blur as Penny tried to build up her cloned bio-mechanical body’s synthetic muscle mass – a concept she found baffling for _multiple_ reasons – and learned more about the world she found herself in. At least, she _tried_ to learn; she found it extremely difficult to get past the fact that she was in another body in another world, but a few snippets of information managed to stick with her.

It wasn’t until the end of that week, sitting on her bed after another exhausting bout of physical therapy, that she even thought to ask why she’d been summoned in the first place.

“Huh?” Ruby asked, blinking at her as she put the length of crystal back in the nightstand beside Penny’s bed. “Oh, did we never talk about that?” she asked, sheepishly scratching her cheek as the Synthoid shook her head. “Huh. W-Well, uh, as far as reasons go, it’s actually kind of generic. Some prophecy about the sun going out or something – yeah, they didn’t trust me with the details,” Ruby mumbled, scowling playfully at Penny as she giggled.

“And I’m supposed to stop that, somehow?” Penny asked with a smile; it was so absurd to her that it seemed almost nonsensical.

“Yeah, I guess. Who knows? Maybe it’s _extra_ -generic and there’s some big demon lord for you to fight,” Ruby said, letting herself smile as well.

“And she’ll turn into a cute girl once I beat her first form?”

Ruby just chuckled and nodded, prompting another giggle from Penny. For a few moments, the two sat in amicable silence, but then Ruby cleared her throat and said, “W-Well, uh… This’ll be awkward no matter how I say it, s-so I’ll just come out and say it.” She paused, took a deep breath, and met Penny’s eyes before she asked, “Do… Do you want to make-out?”

“I… What?” Penny asked, blinking repeatedly as she straightened.

“To give you some Alpha, to keep you from getting Frenzied?” Ruby half-explained, half-asked, a blush coloring her cheeks again. “Look, I know you’ve got no experience with this sort of thing, but…” She trailed off with a sigh and shook her head. “This is how things work in our world, Penny. We need to stay sane, to keep ourselves from hurting the people around us, and we need to… do stuff like this to do that.”

“O-Oh… R-Right,” Penny mumbled, swallowing as she drew her legs up onto the bed in an unconscious attempt to get away from Ruby. She bit her lip as she stared down at her lap, trying to understand all the conflicting emotions within her – and wishing that she’d had her emotional simulation programming instead of a confusing mess of hormones; at least she’d _understood_ her programming.

“I-If you don’t want to, t-then, uh… W-Well, y-you’ve got another c-couple of days before it even _starts_ to be an issue,” Ruby said, “a-and then it’ll be a slow build until you… you know.”

“I-Is, um… I-Is there another w-way?” Penny asked.

“Technically,” Ruby said, pasting a small smile onto her lips to hide her disappointment. “It’s, um… kind of expensive, but you can extract Alpha from bodily fluids – usually blood, in this case – and turn it into an injectable solution. It works p-pretty much as well as the, uh, more common methods, but… well, like I said, it’s expensive.”

“O-Oh,” Penny mumbled. She took a deep breath, then blushed brightly as she said, “W-Well, I, uh… W-We can do it, um... t-the way you suggested.”

“Huh?... O-Oh,” Ruby said, relief making her smile. “Well, then, I… uh… I’ll take the lead here, alright?” she asked, drawing a timid nod from Penny.

Ruby sat down beside her on the bed, making the timid not-quite-robot shiver, and placed her hand beneath her chin. She lifted Penny’s face and, slowly enough to give her plenty of time to back out, lowered her own to it until their lips were pressed together.

Penny froze at the moment of contact, her mouth going dry just from the sensation of kissing someone. Self-consciously, she tried to replicate what Ruby was doing, attempting to return the kiss to the best of her ability, which made Ruby giggle softly.

When she felt Ruby’s tongue prod at her lips, Penny clenched her eyes shut and opened her mouth, letting the slick muscle inside of her – only to find her eyes opening to narrow slits as she realized she could _taste_ it. The sense was entirely alien to her, but she still felt it calming, so much so that she started wondering how she’d describe it; she had the words to describe flavor, yes, but no experience at understanding what each one _tasted_ like.

Before she could even _begin_ to understand every feeling that taste alone made surge through her, she felt Ruby’s tongue withdraw from her mouth, making her blink in confusion. Without even meaning to or realizing it, she swallowed the saliva that had been left in her mouth. Penny licked her lips, only to blush at the thought of how that must look to Ruby, before she asked, “W-Was that… Was th-that it?”

“Huh? It’s been…” Ruby said, glancing over to a clock hanging on the wall. “It’s been _two_ _minutes_. Did you enjoy it that much?” she asked teasingly, making Penny’s blush deepen.

“M-… Maybe,” Penny mumbled, pulling her legs closer to her in an instinctive attempt to make herself smaller.

Ruby giggled and wrapped her arms around the timid girl, giving her a warm, comforting hug that made Penny sigh and slump against her. “Well, if you liked it that much, it doesn’t have to be something we only do once a week,” she said, making Penny’s blush deepen – and made her press herself more firmly into Ruby’s hug. “We can do it more often, if you want.”

“I-I, uh… C-Can I think a-about it?” Penny asked in a murmur.

“Of course, Penny. Take all the time you need.”

*             *             *             *             *             *

By the time a month had gone by, Penny was feeling marginally better about her new situation. Regaining the ability to move at a normal speed for more than a minute at a time certainly helped, as did her newfound agency in going for walks outside – as long as she had Ruby accompanying her, that is. Still, she didn’t mind; she enjoyed the company, and it gave her a chance to learn more about the world she now lived in.

Even though some things – such as the lack of certain taboos and the knowledge that young children were only really “allowed” in designated child-friendly areas of cities – made her profoundly uncomfortable.

Along with her newfound freedom to roam the streets and trails outside of the compound – which she’d learned was owned by Stellar Industries, a for-profit corporation devoted to researching new spells and enchantments for a variety of purposes – came a new electronic device to play with: a Remora, a pocket-sized tablet computer not much different than the Scrolls of Remnant. In addition to letting her contact Ruby or her doctor at a moment’s notice, it also gave her access to the internet and the repository of information therein.

So, after weeks spent researching various topics in an attempt to familiarize herself with the world, she found herself bumping against one topic more than any other: sex.

She shied away from it as often as she could, but eventually found her own instincts – both the familiar desire to gather as much information as possible and the unfamiliar desires of her new body – compelling her to study it as well. So, she began by perusing the more scientific information available: anatomy of the various species, what nerve endings in what places respond in what ways, how most species have something similar to menopause that renders them either sterile or infertile beyond a certain age.

Eventually, that wasn’t enough. So, her cheeks so hot she thought they might burst into flame, Penny began watching porn.

Which was why Ruby found her sitting completely motionless at her desk. Her Remora, propped up by the small stand that its cover could be used as, let out an array of sounds that let Ruby know exactly what she’d been watching.

“Ooh, good eye,” Ruby said as she closed the door behind her, making Penny let out a startled yelp and whirl to face her so quickly that she fell out of her chair.

“R-R-Ruby!” Penny exclaimed, blushing brilliantly. “W-W-W-…?!”

“It’s time to feed you, of course,” Ruby said, smiling at Penny like she hadn’t just walked in on her watching porn. “Don’t you remember?” she asked, walking over to the nightstand and pulling out the crystal of electrically-aligned mana. “Or did you lose track of time watching Raven going to town on herself?”

“I-I-I… Y-You…” Penny stammered, unable to form a coherent _thought_ , much less a sentence.

“Oh, stop worrying so much,” Ruby said, kneeling down beside her – and unintentionally giving Penny a fantastic view of her curvy thighs. “It’s one hundred percent fine to be looking at that sort of thing, Penny. No one in the world will judge you for it. They might assume you’ve got some sort of bane that _compels_ you to do it, but that’s about the worst it’d get.”

“B-But… O-Okay,” Penny mumbled. She hesitantly accepted the brunette’s help getting to her feet, though her blush only deepened when she realized just how warm and soft her hand was. She licked her lips as Ruby guided her over to the bed and sat her down on it, trying to fight the odd, anxious tension that she felt within her. “I, uh… R-Ruby?”

“Yes?” Ruby asked, tilting her head quizzically as she gave her a gentle smile.

“I-I… um… W-What’s it l-like?” Penny asked, making Ruby blink at her. “Please don’t make me say it,” she whispered, swallowing when she felt a nervous fluttering in her chest.

“Uh… Oh! You mean sex?” Ruby asked, giggling when Penny gave a miniscule nod and blushed ever deeper. “Well, uh… It’s fun? What makes you ask?”

“I-I… I-I’ve never…” Penny mumbled, ducking her head as she trailed off.

“You’ve never had sex?” Ruby asked bluntly, making Penny’s blush deepen – though, pointedly, she didn’t nod. “No, that’s… You’ve never done _anything_ , have you?” Ruby murmured, drawing a tiny nod from the Synthoid. “Oh, well, that’s… Right, you’re not from this world – and you were a robot, too! I should’ve expected something like this. So, uh, do you want to try something?”

“H-Huh?!” Penny asked, whipping her head up so quickly that it made her orange hair bounce wildly.

“Relax, Penny,” Ruby said as soothingly as she could. “It’d be just like that video – just with my hands instead of yours. Is that okay?”

“I-I-I…” Penny stammered. She ducked her head, swallowed again, then nodded. “O-Okay, R-Ruby. I-I… P-Please.”

Ruby smiled again, then set down the crystal and took both of Penny’s hands in her own, making the former-robot gasp despite her lack of lungs. “I’ll be gentle, Penny,” she murmured gently, meeting Penny’s vivid green eyes. “I promise.”

Penny shivered, but nodded again. She closed her eyes when Ruby leaned in to kiss her, returning it nervously as she felt her partner get onto the bed with her. A pair of hands came to rest at her sides, gingerly working their fingers across her clothed skin before hooking beneath her T-shirt and starting to lift it. The kiss broke as Ruby pulled the shirt off of her, but resumed a moment later, her hands gently caressing Penny’s bare skin and pulling a pleasured whimper from her.

Ruby smiled at the sound, but pulled away a moment later. “Now, this is going to be… new to you, most likely,” she said. “Do you want something to help distract you from it, or do you just want to face it head-on?”

“H-Huh?” Penny mumbled, her attention still locked on the circles Ruby’s fingertips were softly tracing onto her waist. “I-I, uh… I-I’ll have t-to learn to d-deal with this, s-so, um…”

“Okay,” Ruby said, smiling comfortingly. “Just tell me if it’s ever too much for you and I’ll stop, okay?”

“Y-Yes. Th-Thank you,” Penny said, only to shiver and sigh as Ruby’s fingers slowly trailed their way up her naked abdominals. She was pale, with a light dusting of freckles across much of her skin – which Penny found a bit odd; what little she knew about them made her think that freckles were more like an incomplete tan than anything else. The thought was intentional, of course; she was trying not to focus on how Ruby was unhooking her bra, or on what would come next.

But Penny found she couldn’t ignore the feeling of Ruby’s hands – soft, gentle, and warm – when they cupped her petite breasts. She moaned, the alien sensations wiping thought from her mind in a searing rush of pleasure.

Ruby giggled at Penny’s reaction, saying, “I can’t tell if you’re super-sensitive or not, Penny.”

Penny blushed and ducked her head, only to find that put the small kneading motions of Ruby’s hands directly within her line of sight. “A-Are they… Do y-you…?” Penny mumbled, letting herself trail off as she muffled a whimper.

“Yes, Penny, I like them,” Ruby assured her, giggling again. “They’re yours, after all. How could I not?”

Penny found herself blushing again, her heart fluttering in her chest - from something other than the pleasant feelings emanating from her breasts. “Th-Th-Thank you, Ruby.”

“Hey, don’t thank me yet. We’re not even halfway done, after all.”

As if to emphasize her remark, a loud moan cut in from the tablet computer on Penny’s desk, all but abandoned as the two young women continued to enjoy each other’s company.

“Oh, let me get that,” Ruby mumbled, blushing herself as she hopped off the bed and closed the window on the handheld device. She paused as she turned around, an idea coming to her at the sight of Penny sitting, cheeks red, at the edge of the bed. After a moment, she asked, “So, uh, Penny? I can, uh… I can tell you’re pretty embarrassed right now. Would it be better if I, uh, if I took my top off, too?”

“Huh?” Penny asked, blinking at her. After a moment spent processing the question, she hunched her shoulders and said, “U-Uh… Maybe?”

“Worth a shot, then?” Ruby asked, smiling comfortingly as she began to disrobe. Much to Penny’s surprise, her corset came off quickly and easily; her blouse followed a moment later, revealing the lack of a bra despite the heft of her breasts – and then confusing Penny, who wondered how she managed all of that without taking her cloak off. Ruby removed that much more reverently, draping it over the back of Penny’s desk chair in a way that would keep it from wrinkling.

Once she’d finished, Ruby returned to the bed, sitting down beside Penny and giggling at the way the former robot’s eyes alternated between looking at her chest and looking at _anything_ else. “Do you want to touch them?” Ruby asked, cupping her hands beneath her breasts and giving them a shake.

Penny swallowed, unable to tear her eyes away from the jiggling tits. In the back of her mind, part of her commented on how she’d never been so utterly fascinated by flesh before, not even when she’d been at her most envious of it, but she did her best to ignore it as she lifted a trembling hand to her partner’s chest.

Soft, yielding warmth met her touch as she gently rested her fingers against Ruby’s breast, careful not to squeeze too hard – her studies of anatomy hadn’t been for nothing, after all. Still, Ruby’s sudden intake of breath at Penny’s touch drove her to attempt to emulate the actions the more experienced of the two had taken on her bosom, kneading the tender flesh beneath her hand. When Ruby let out a low groan, Penny paused, too scared she’d hurt her to even ask.

“It’s okay,” Ruby said, smiling at her. “It feels good, Penny. Go on.”

Penny swallowed again and nodded. She resumed kneading her partner’s breast, drawing a contented sigh from the Dhampir, who brought her own hands back to Penny’s chest in return and returned the favor. Penny had a hard time concentrating after that, but she managed to keep massaging Ruby’s boobs despite the pleasure radiating from her own.

Eventually, however, Ruby did something Penny didn’t expect: she flicked a thumb over one of Penny’s stiff nipples, making her gasp at the lightning bolt of sensation that flowed through her. “I thought you didn’t need to breathe,” Ruby teased, tweaking her other nipple and making Penny gasp again.

Penny wanted to respond to that, to give as good as she was getting, but what little competitiveness she had was swallowed by the ecstasy consuming her mind. Her hands were still aside from the occasional twitch, and she moaned and leaned into Ruby’s touch, unable to handle the sensations flowing through her.

Ruby giggled, another idea coming to mind. As quickly as she could without startling or hurting her, Ruby pulled Penny into her lap so that her chest was pressed against the Synthoid’s back. “How does this feel?” she murmured into the former robot’s ear as she continued toying with her bosom, making her shudder and groan with delight.

“S-So g-good,” Penny mumbled, leaning back against Ruby. She enjoyed pretty much everything about their new position: the heat radiating from her partner’s breasts, the caresses and squeezes of her hands, even the soft, lustful breaths brushing against her ear. There was just one thing she felt was missing, but she couldn’t tell what it was.

Until she felt Ruby’s hand slide down her chest and brush against the hem of her skirt.

“Tell me if this is too much,” Ruby told her, gently working her fingers past the hemline of Penny’s skirt. Penny gave her a tiny nod, too scared and curious to do anything else, then whimpered at the feeling of a single fingertip gliding over her panties – which, as she was utterly embarrassed to realize, were utterly _soaked_ with her arousal.

Penny could do little more than whimper and moan as Ruby’s fingers slowly introduced her to an overwhelming amount of pleasure. Her mind washed away beneath its flow, rendering her incapable of thought – or anything, really. All she did for quite some time was writhe in Ruby’s lap, a plethora of various, enthralled sounds leaking past her lips, and wallow in the ecstasy and warmth that the Dhampir’s body could give her.

After some time – how much, she didn’t know – Penny felt herself rising up through it, the pleasure no longer utterly overwhelming her. She still shook and moaned, her entire body trembling from the way Ruby’s fingers played over her lower lips, but it no longer consumed her ability to think.

“S-So… So g-good,” she mumbled, half to reassure her partner that she was still conscious – and half to show that she’d regained her mind.

Ruby just smiled, then used the hand she’d had at Penny’s breast to tilt the younger woman’s head sideways. She met Penny’s eyes for a long moment before she leaned in to kiss her, slipping her tongue into her mouth as she moaned again. Penny’s eyes drifted shut as she let herself fall away again, enjoying both the taste of Ruby’s sweet saliva and the immeasurable feelings building between her legs.

When Ruby broke the kiss to catch her breath, Penny realized something – though she didn’t quite understand what. “R-Ruby?” Penny mumbled questioningly, blinking her glassy eyes repeatedly. “S-Something’s… Something’s h-h-happening.”

“Shh…” Ruby murmured, kissing her cheek. “It’s okay, Penny. Just let it happen.”

Penny stared into her silver eyes, full of compassion and kindness, as she felt the alien sensation wind tighter and tighter within her – until, eventually, it released. She cried out, falling back against Ruby as every nerve in her body misfired and every muscle ceased to function. Stars swim in her vision as utter ecstasy flooded her mind, momentarily washing it away again and rendering her incapable of thought.

When she recovered, she found that she was no longer sitting on Ruby’s lap; instead, she was laying down on the bed, Ruby’s thighs beneath her head like a pillow as the Dhampir smiled down at her.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, making Penny blush.

“T-Tired,” Penny mumbled, shrinking back – only for her blush to deepen as the motion made her realize just how soft Ruby’s thighs were. “A-And h-happy, a-and… content?”

“That’s all normal, Penny,” Ruby said, drawing a small, relieved sigh from the Synthoid. “Honestly, all things considered, you handled that pretty well. I mean, it was your first experience with any of that, right?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Most people have some sort of experience with some sensation, at least, before they get into something like this. I mean, girls will wind up waking up with their hand or a stuffed animal or something between their legs and feel it when they pull it away, at least. I think guys go through something similar, too, but, well,” Ruby said, trailing off with a small chuckle. Penny giggled beneath her, so she continued. “So, uh, yeah. You handled that pretty well, all things considered… but I said that already, didn’t I?”

Penny giggled again, finding herself smiling up at Ruby. She sighed contentedly as she met her eyes, then blushed and mumbled, “Th-Thank you, Ruby. I-I hope I w-wasn’t too m-much trouble.”

“Not at all. I’m always happy to have a cutie like you in my lap,” Ruby said, her smile briefly morphing into a playful smirk as Penny squeaked with embarrassment and bolted upright, staring at the wall to keep herself from blushing further. “Too much?” Ruby asked, genuine worry leaking into her voice.

“M-Maybe a l-little.”

“Sorry. I’ll go get you a glass of water, okay?”

“S-Sure. Thank y-… Thank you, Ruby.”

“No problem. Back in a sec.”

*             *             *             *             *             *

“Hey, Ruby,” Penny began, already feeling her cheeks warm. A week had passed since the two of them had shared Penny’s first sexual experience, but – beyond Ruby teasing her a little bit the day after – neither of them had talked about it. Other than Penny finding herself more comfortable sharing the occasional hug or kiss with the Dhampir, and the increasingly lewd dreams that had started plaguing her at night, it was almost like it had never happened. “I… I’ve been reading some stuff about the Adventurers’ Guild.”

“Oh?” Ruby asked, putting away the length of electrically-attuned crystal. “I’m curious where you’re going with this,” she said, smiling as she sat down next to her.

“Well, I, uh…” Penny mumbled, blushing fully as Ruby’s breasts squished against her arm. “I think the people here want me to join it, at some point. And I, uh… I don’t really know if I want to join up as a team leader.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Ruby said, giggling when Penny pouted at her.

“No, I mean… I mean that the leaders are expected to take charge, right? They’re supposed to know what to do, where to go, who to talk to?” Penny asked, drawing a few nods from Ruby. “W-Well, I don’t… I still don’t know much about this world, Ruby. I d-don’t think I can handle being in charge of people, m-much less having... d-doing… w-what we...”

“Hey, it’s okay, Penny,” Ruby said, laying her hand over Penny’s. “Not everyone likes being in charge, and not everyone likes sharing hormones with people they’ve just met. We’ll just have to ask someone at Stellar for some arrangement; I’m sure they can find an established team for you to join, maybe even get them to spend some time with you to see if it’s a good fit.”

“N-No, I… I w-want to be on y-your team, Ruby,” Penny mumbled, ducking her head to hide her steadily growing blush. “I-I know you’re planning on… planning o-on joining the Guild when you turn twenty, a-and I want to g-… I want to go with you.”

“Really?” Ruby asked, smiling as Penny – still hiding her face – nodded. “Well, in that case: welcome to the team, Penny.”

“H-Huh?” Penny asked, looking up at Ruby with hope and disbelief warring in her eyes.

“I’d be happy to have you,” Ruby said with a smile.

Penny’s eyes started watering, and – not fully understanding why – she leaned towards her, pressing their lips together in a kiss that Ruby readily returned.

And so, their fates bound together, they started planning what they would do once they began their journey.


	2. Prologue 2: Jaune's Unfortunate Transportation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a good place to tell you that not every character will keep their canonical appearance. This is mostly because describing the sorts of complex outfits they wear takes multiple large paragraphs and results in giving you information that you already had. Your first example of an altered appearance is Pyrrha, who wears actual armor - as you'll soon find out.

“Ugh, my head,” Jaune Arc mumbled as he woke up, blinking the bleariness from his eyes as he looked around. “Where am I?” he asked aloud, sitting up – only to grunt and grimace as his headache showed just how much it didn’t like him moving.

As he recovered from what felt like a hangover, he realized he was in a forest – which was especially odd, considering he’d gone to sleep in his bed the previous night. Looking down at where his head had been laying, he saw the obvious source of his headache: a few small rocks.

“Figures,” he mumbled, grunting as he rose to his feet. He sighed, then took stock of himself. Despite how badly it ached, there wasn’t a drop of blood leaking from beneath his short blonde hair, nor did his dirt-covered pajamas seem to be hiding any bruises or other injuries. His back hurt, but only in a vaguely unpleasant way, not in a “someone broke my back and then dragged me out into the woods because they thought they’d killed me” sort of way.

“Wait, are those… Those are pine trees,” he said, his blue eyes going wide as he stared at the conifers surrounding him. “There aren’t any pine trees in Embiellia… There aren’t any pine trees in Embiellia! Where am I?!”

In a blind panic, he blundered backwards into a tree, which he pressed his back against as his breathing became heavy. “Okay, okay,” he mumbled aloud, unable to think over the pounding of his heart in his chest. “Okay, so, you’re in the woods somewhere, Jaune. No clue where, no idea who could’ve put you here, nothing at all to go by. But! The sun’s up, which means you can tell which ways are _roughly_ east and west, right? Just look up, wait a few minutes, look up again, right? And in the meantime, you can climb a tree, a tall one, and see if you can see anything nearby. If you see a city, you head towards it; mountains, head in the other direction; river, get right up against it and start following that… upstream or downstream?”

Slowly, by forming plans for a dozen different scenarios, he calmed himself down. Then, he started putting them into action.

First, he drew a rough circle in the ground, parting dirt and shoving pine needles around him as he marked his place. After glancing up at the sun and getting a rough idea of its position through the trees, he set about climbing one – and met the first of many hurdles.

“Ugh! I knew skipping PE back in high school would come back to bite me!”

But, after several minutes of effort – followed by falling out, and then several more minutes of effort – he managed to scale to the top of the tree he’d chosen. Unfortunately for him, however, it was not the tallest tree in the forest – by a wide margin. Still, he managed to get a rough idea of just how bad his situation was.

So, you know. Progress.

By the time he’d finished grumbling to himself and easing his way down the tree, nearly half an hour had passed since he first looked to the sun. He stepped back into the circle he’d made and marked its position again, mumbling, “Okay, so it’s rising. That’s good, at least. So… that means it’s east right now, right? Hmm… Okay, I’ll head east.”

And with that, he was off, heading in a direction chosen almost entirely at random with only the vaguest of ideas on how to exit the forest he’d woken up in. Along the way, he tripped several times, stepped on a patch of fallen bark covered with abnormally sticky sap, and was pursued by bees on two separate occasions.

Truly, he was an unlucky man.

But the worst had yet to come.

“Oh, no,” Jaune muttered, his eyes going wide with fear as he gazed at the fearsome creature before him. Standing nearly twice his six feet in height and with biceps bigger than his head, her nudity made it plainly obvious that she was female – and that she was covered in shaggy grey fur from head to toe. Ragged claws multiple inches in length dangled from her bulky hands, dripping with blood and torn skin from the fallen deer she had her fangs buried in.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. If all it had been was an Grizzlar feasting on its prey, he would’ve thrown a rock past her and seen what her reaction was; if she’d growled, he’d run, and if she’d asked who was there, he’d have introduced himself. No, the single worst bit of her appearance was the miasma of mist-like darkness that welled up from beneath her feet, that seeped from her eyes and mouth as she ate.

She wasn’t Frenzied.

_It_ was a _Wild_.

“Fuck,” Jaune hissed under his breath, heart racing in his chest once again as he slowly backed away from the inhuman creature. “Okay, the wind’s in my favor,” he mumbled, noting the breeze gusting against his sides; he was downwind of the Wild, which meant it wouldn’t be able to smell him as easily. “How did I get this close to it without… No, no, stay focused,” he mumbled, almost unable to keep himself from asking the obvious question. Jaune’s continued worrying and planning was just barely covered up by the Grizzlar’s crunching on the deer’s bones, making his empty stomach roil with a mixture of hunger and nausea.

“I just… need to go in a different direction,” he murmured, the realization staggering him. “I’ve gone, what, four miles east? That’s not enough to make a real difference, right? Forests can be big. I just need to get away from it.”

He took a deep breath, turned, and started walking – only to step directly onto a dry branch with his very first step. He closed his eyes, noting with no small measure of horror that the Grizzlar’s noisy gnawing had stopped entirely.

“Great,” Jaune whispered, his voice pitched high with fear that threatened to paralyze him. “Death by cliché. Great work, Jaune.”

It roared, the sound shaking the trees around them and making Jaune bolt, taking off at the fastest run he could manage in the rough terrain with legs that felt like jelly. Still, the Wild was faster, something Jaune was very much aware of as every pounding stride it made seemed to quake the ground beneath his feet.

Eventually, of course, Jaune fell, tripping over a bush he’d tried to jump over in his frenzied dash. He struck the ground hard enough to bruise his arms – just in time for the Grizzlar to sail over him, its jaws missing his head by less than an inch.

And for a disc of what looked like bronze to smash into its skull.

“Stay down!”

Jaune did as the woman said, too freaked out to understand what had just happened. All his panicked mind was able to do was follow her instruction – and see that she had long red hair.

The Grizzlar whirled on its feet, roaring in anger at the redhead as her shield returned to her arm. She drew the sword from her back and lunged for the Wild, letting out a wordless cry of her own to distract it from the easier prey lying behind her.

She dove beneath the Wild’s massive paw as it swept it towards her, grunting as one of its claws glanced off of her shield and jerked her arm to the side. The redhead kept her drive about her, though, and managed to score a deep gash along its leg as she passed between them; she spun around the moment she landed, slicing through the other just as deeply and sending the beast toppling to the ground.

It bellowed in fury, claws tearing at the ground beneath it as the redhead jumped up and, grasping her sword with both hands, stabbed it through the back of its heart. The Wild’s motions stilled a moment later, the black miasma that granted it life pouring from its mouth and sinking into the ground before it crumbled into dust.

The redhead glanced at Jaune, sighing in relief when she saw that he was mostly unharmed. “Hello,” she said, dusting herself off as she walked towards his still-prone form and squatted down beside him. Her bright green eyes shared the smile on her lips as she met his eyes, saying, “I imagine you have quite the story behind why you’re out here in your pajamas. Are you alright?”

Jaune blinked at her, then swallowed and started rising to his feet – only to pause when she offered him a hand. Taking it gratefully, he said, “Y-Yeah, I think. Well, m-maybe?”

“Hmm?”

“Where am I, exactly?”

Pyrrha Nikos – as the redhead introduced herself – turned out to be a useful source of information for the misplaced blonde. As it turned out, he wasn’t anywhere near his hometown of Embiellia – or even on the same continent.

“I’m _where_?!” Jaune asked, eyes going wide.

“A forest that borders Almarin, in the Sovereign Empire of Noph, on the western end of Yppterin,” Pyrrha explained to him for the third time, her smile still warm and comforting even as it started to wane.

“How the… How did I get here?” Jaune mumbled under his breath.

“That is a very good question,” Pyrrha asked, folding her arms as she took a closer look at him. Startled, he flinched away – and then looked her over in return. She wore a body-covering suit of leather armor, though one that parted around key joints to aid her mobility; specifically, her elbows, armpits, knees, and hips. A mail skirt covered her groin instead, and a pair of what looked like knee-pads protected what her piecemeal greaves didn’t. Her sword was carried in a sheath that all but blended in with the dark brown of her armor, and her shield dangled precariously from her arm now that she’d let go of the inner strap; both sword and shield were made of what appeared to be bronze, though Jaune guessed they were actually just colored steel – no one sane would be willing to wield something as comparatively weak as bronze when steel was readily available.

“Y-Yeah,” Jaune mumbled, pretending to scan the surrounding trees as he looked away; he felt like he’d been staring at her for too long.

“Hmm… Could it have been a Roaming Well?” Pyrrha asked.

“A… Oh, right. Those things,” Jaune said, letting out a nervous laugh. “Uh… What were those, again?”

“As far as anyone can tell, holes in reality that lead to other parts of the world,” Pyrrha explained patiently. “No one knows why they appear at all, much less why they appear where they do; they only exist for brief periods of time, brief enough that scientists are having a hard time studying them. Do you think you could have fallen through one of them?”

“Maybe?” Jaune mumbled, rubbing the back of his head – which was still sore. “I… To be honest, I’m not sure. It’d explain why I’m here, for sure, but… could it really just be something that random?” he asked, mentally cursing his recent streak of bad luck.

“Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, not everything is decided by Fate,” Pyrrha said with a smile. “For example: I don’t believe that it’s my destiny to bring you safely to Almarin, but I’m definitely going to do it. As long as you’re okay with that, that is,” she added, suddenly seeming bashful to the still-confused blonde.

“Yeah, that’s… That sounds great, to be honest,” Jaune said, returning her smile to the best of his ability. “Lead the way?”

“Certainly. Follow me, if you please.”

*             *             *             *             *             *

After Pyrrha led Jaune to Almarin – and talked the guards into letting them through the city’s wall – they headed for the Adventurers’ Guild Hall, a building squat and rounded enough to make Jaune mildly annoyed that it was called a “Hall”. There, Jaune borrowed a phone and made a call to his family, leading to a long conversation where he spoke to both of his parents and the six of his seven sisters who were at the family home and assured them that he was safe; during that time, Pyrrha found some clothes for him, which he gratefully accepted half an hour later when he finally hung up on his family, and had removed her armor and arming jacket, revealing a bronze-colored tube-top and black miniskirt.

“So… They seem nice,” Pyrrha said, looking out the window of the room she’d rented as Jaune got dressed on the other side of the room.

“Eh, they’re alright,” Jaune said, pulling up the underwear she’d graciously gotten for him. Sitting down to put on a pair of socks next, he added, “Well, most of the time. I’m kind of glad that was just a phone call; if it’d been in person, I’d have either been suffocated by all the hugs or been suffocated by Mom for what that Well-thing did to the side of the house.”

Pyrrha giggled, glancing over at him with a smile, only to look away again with a blush after seeing him half-naked. “Still, they seemed happy to hear from you, at least… How are you planning on getting back?” she asked after a moment, frowning as she glanced at him again.

“I… I don’t know,” he admitted, zipping up his jeans. Once he’d tugged on his T-shirt, he said, “I’ll probably have to look for a job, I guess. Enough to afford to live somewhere cheap until I’ve saved enough to get on the road.”

“They can’t send anything to help you?”

“If they could, it wouldn’t be much. I’m not the oldest sibling, but I’m not the youngest, either; June’s about to turn fifteen, and she’s a Dhampir, so that’ll put some stress on everyone, and since Sophie’s been sickly ever since she was little that’ll likely make her get sick again. It’s just… it’ll all add up,” Jaune said, shrugging a shoulder.

“Well… What if I said there was a way for you to start your journey back home already? And that it would provide all the money you’d need along the way?”

“I’d ask why you were asking me to join the Guild,” Jaune said flatly, surprising Pyrrha for a moment; after that, she laughed.

“Because I joined the Guild to make sure people could be safe, and happy, no matter where they were or who they are,” Pyrrha said, her smile turning brittle – something Jaune managed to notice. “You joining the Guild officially would just make it easier for me to help you get back home, Jaune. Assuming you want the help, I mean,” she finished, a sudden feeling of anxiety making her laugh again.

Jaune opened his mouth to speak, then shut it before the words could leave his lips. “Maybe that’d be a good idea,” he mumbled, smiling weakly at her as she beamed at him. “I might want to, uh, you know, think about it first, but… I’ll give you a firm maybe,” he said, making her giggle again.

“Well, at least you’re considering it,” Pyrrha said jokingly, drawing a faint chuckle from Jaune. “Anyway, uh… Well, let me just make sure you’re _completely_ okay, okay? How’s your… You know, your Drive?”

“Oh, uh, well, I settled it a couple days ago and it’s Average, so I’ve got another week or so before I have to deal with that again,” Jaune said, half-mumbling, as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh… How’s yours?”

“Well…” Pyrrha began, only to trail off with a blush as she looked away. “I have an Average Drive as well, but… It may have been slightly over a week since I ‘handled’ it.”

“Ah, I see… Would you, you know… Well, I mean, unless you’ve got something else going on, we should be compatible,” Jaune rambled, glancing away as well. “Male and female Alpha hormones work off different sets, right?”

“Yes, that they do,” Pyrrha said, wondering why she felt so relieved – and why she’d lied about how long it had been. ‘What is wrong with me today? He’s not even that handsome… is he?’ “A-Anyway, uh… Since I’m basically asking you for a favor, how about w-we…” she trailed off, taking a deep breath, before she asked, “h-how about we go a bit f-further than usual?”

“Huh?” Jaune asked. Pyrrha just smiled weakly at him, then gestured to the bed. “Oh, uh, well…” he mumbled, his cheeks heating. “Taking off my pants right after I put them on, huh?” he muttered to himself, unzipping his jeans before he sat down.

Pyrrha took another deep breath, then sank to her knees before him. “B-Before we begin,” she said, unfamiliar anxiety crashing over her in a wave, “is there a-anything I should know? About you, or your likes, dislikes? Anything?”

“Uh… Not really?” Jaune said questioningly. “I’m… not all that, uh, ‘worldly’, so, uh… Maybe?”

Pyrrha giggled again, then cast her eyes back down to her partner’s pants. Reaching up, she pulled them and the boxers beneath them down in a single, drawn-out tug, revealing his half-flaccid member. She swallowed at the sight of it, then trailed her fingers along one of Jaune’s thighs and over his length, making it twitch beneath her touch and making him sigh.

‘This is… Why are we doing this, again?’ Jaune thought, feeling himself stiffen beneath her light, teasing touch as she wrapped her hand around his cock. He groaned softly as she began stroking him, producing another chuckle from the redhead and making her blush again. ‘She… needs to keep from Frenzying, yeah, but… if she wanted me to help, we could’ve just…’

His thoughts trailed off as he felt Pyrrha’s tongue brush against the tip of his dick, licking up the bead of pre-cum that had emerged. She let out a moan, then favored his length with another caressing licks, making him groan again.

‘Okay, you’re doing this. Why?’ Pyrrha asked herself, kissing along the underside of the blonde’s cock until her lips met his sack. She took one of the orbs into her mouth, gently sucking it as she continued stroking his length. ‘Sure, he’s cute, but… Okay, so he is pretty tasty,’ she admitted to herself, her eyes half-closing as his flavor settled fully onto her tongue; oddly, she found he tasted like watered-down barbecue sauce. ‘That’s not unusual, sure, but… Why am I enjoying this so much?’

“Wait, something’s…” Jaune said, making Pyrrha look up at him. “Something’s wrong,” he said after a moment, making her lift her mouth from his length. “This is… too fast?”

She frowned, then grimaced. “Yes, you’re… You’re right. Why did we…?” she began to ask, only to trail off as the sounds of clanging metal and pounding footsteps reached her ears. Worry making her steps quick, she dashed to the window and threw open the curtains, eyes going wide at the sight that greeted her.

Enough miasma to make the noon sunlight seem like dusk.

“No,” Pyrrha mumbled, watching the bizarrely orderly procession of Wilds marching in the street. Three of them wore bits of plate armor marred with blood and, in one case, ragged strips of skin, and another wore a suit of leather armor that looked to be sized for someone taller than its four and a half feet of height.

“What in the Bright?” Jaune asked, zipping his pants back up as he stood beside her. His breathing was still heavy with lust, and his erection hadn’t subsided at all at the sight of the gore covering some of the Wilds, something that disgusted him. “What’s going on?”

“I need to get out there,” Pyrrha said, darting away from the window and picking up her sword. As she strapped its sheath on her back, she found herself gritting her teeth – the desire to throw herself on the bed and spread her legs for him was growing stronger with every breath she took. “You’re feeling this, too, right?” she asked, drawing a grimace and a nod from Jaune. “Then we’re dealing with an enemy that has access to lust-based magic,” she noted, grabbing her shield and attaching it to her arm with a faintly visible black energy, the sight of which startled Jaune.

“Wilds don’t gather like this. Harbinger?” Jaune said, stating the obvious.

“A Succubus-type, maybe. Or maybe the White Fang decided to attack here,” Pyrrha said, glancing at her armor longingly before she shook her head and turned to the door. “Damn it,” she mumbled.

“Wait,” Jaune said, “you’re going without armor?”

“Not enough time to put it back on.”

“Then…” Jaune trailed off, letting out a sigh as she left the room in a hurry. “Damn it. I have to go after her, don’t I?”

*             *             *             *             *             *

Pyrrha’s sword slid cleanly through the neck of the Wild, one that looked mostly human but had a serpentine lower body, causing miasma to spill from its neck-stump instead of its mouth and nose; she didn’t take the time to watch, instead turning to stab the mostly-feline Wild that attempted to pounce on her. It knocked her to the ground with its mass as it died, but she was freed from enough of its dissolving heft quickly enough to throw it off of her and roll out of the way of the sweeping, axe-like tail of an almost scorpion-like figure.

‘Close,’ she thought, getting her feet back beneath her and raising her shield to block its next tail-swipe. She shifted her sword into its spear-form and stabbed, piercing one of the Wild’s eyes and killing it with the same efficient violence as the last two.

With a relieved sigh, Pyrrha stood taller and glanced around, then nodded to herself when she saw that she’d managed to clear the street. ‘This one, anyway.’ She kept her eyes open, but moved forward, surveying the area around her for civilians and Wilds alike.

A sound behind her made her whirl around, putting her shield up between her and the claws that scraped against it a second later. She shifted her spear back into a sword and sliced at its wrist, making the now-severed paw fall to the ground and start turning into miasma.

But its other hand lashed down at her, claws tearing through her shirt and driving up sparks as they impacted her suddenly glowing skin.

Not stopping to question it, Pyrrha stabbed the Wild in the neck and rent her blade to the side, opening its throat wide and making it fall to the ground in a heap. As she stepped out of the way of the creature’s collapsing form, she caught sight of Jaune – whose hands were both pointed at her and glowing.

“I take it you just saved my life?” she asked, a smile quirking her lips.

“Just repaying the favor,” Jaune said, hurrying to her side as he awkwardly returned the smile. “And you were talking about how you didn’t have time to put on your armor, so…”

“Thank you,” Pyrrha said, holding back a laugh as the blonde’s cheeks colored – only to gasp, her back straightening and her nipples stiffening beneath her shirt, as an intense wave of lust crashed through her. Her sword clattered to the ground and, before Jaune could understand what was happening, her lips were pressed against his.

For a long moment, he stood frozen, but then he realized what was happening – and then Pyrrha’s tongue slid into his mouth and passed on some of her lust to him, dissolving the careful chain of thought that had been building. He groaned into the kiss, his hands finding their way to her rump and kneading it harshly, making her squeal with delighted surprise.

The low growl of another Wild nearby was enough for Jaune to recover some of his mind, and – with effort – he cast a spell on himself. Suddenly, everything snapped into focus as his ability to concentrate and focus sharply increased, and he broke away from the kiss to suck in a breath. Before he could repeat the spell, though, Pyrrha’s hand was pressed up against his erection; with a groan and something akin to déjà vu, he cast the spell on her as well, making her gasp again as she regained her mind.

“W-What the…?” Pyrrha mumbled, blinking repeatedly. She glanced past Jaune as the Wild growled again, the stooped, picked up her sword, and hurled it at the beast; it turned into a spear in mid-flight and impaled the deer-like humanoid through the eye, killing it instantly and making it start to dissolve into miasma. “What was that?” she asked, turning to face Jaune as she recalled her weapon to her hand.

“Boost to willpower,” Jaune explained as he glanced around warily. “Useful when one of your sisters likes to practice her beguilement magic on you. Or when you want to play video games instead of doing your homework.” Pyrrha chuckled, but didn’t let the joke keep her from scanning their surroundings as well. “So, any clue what we’re looking for?”

“I’d wager it’ll be a Wild Succubus who’s keeping these things in its thrall,” Pyrrha said. Without any warning, she took off down the street at a light jog, making Jaune sigh as he followed her. “Either that or a Wild Vampire. Either way, they should be easy enough to find at a glance, assuming we can actually _get_ a glance at it.”

“Isn’t it weird how they’re moving in formation and stuff, though?” Jaune asked, making her briefly look back at him. “I mean, aren’t Wilds supposed to be vicious and… you know, Wild?”

“Unfortunately, that’s not always the case,” Pyrrha explained without pausing or slowing down; jogging seemed to be as easy as walking for her, Jaune realized enviously. “You know how there are occasionally Wilds who show non-species-based Affinities, yes?”

“Almost always one of the primary or secondary elements, yes.”

“Well, it’s about as common as each individual element Affinity – which means _quite_ rare – but they can gain something passing for sapience instead,” Pyrrha continued, making Jaune’s eyes widen. “The Guild doesn’t like to talk about it because it believes that would bring up unnecessary questions regarding whether or not we should be accepting these ‘sapient’ Wilds.”

“Unnecessary?”

“Every last Wild is hostile to every last Varyn. There are _no_ exceptions,” Pyrrha said, a touch of bitterness in her tone.

“Don’t be so sure, morsels.”

Pyrrha and Jaune came to a halt, looking up into the sky at the flying Wild. Instead of using a spell to aid her flight, however, she relied entirely on the miasma-leaking bat-like wings on her back, making her hover jittery and erratic. A pair of horns curved up from her forehead, only to curve back down in a loose spiral that brushed against her windblown black hair; with pale skin, a sinuous tail ending in a spaded tip, and a pair of legs that grew shaggy brown fur from just above the knee all the way down to her cloven hooves, she was quite the sight.

“See?” Pyrrha mumbled to Jaune as she raised her spear and shield. “Hostile.”

“Calling us morsels was unnecessary, yes,” Jaune mumbled back, making her flash a quick, close-lipped smile at him before returning her attention to the Succubus. Light gathered in his palms as he cast another spell, layering another dose of skin-hardening magic over himself and Pyrrha; it happened again as he did the same with his willpower boost, then yet again as he cast yet another spell.

“Now, now, children of man,” the Wild said soothingly, her voice lilting and seductive and sending a brush of lust-heavy magic against their warded minds. “Everyone is a morsel to a Succubus in this world of ours. We feed off the energy given off during sex and, well,” she added with a husky laugh, “when _isn’t_ someone screwing someone having sex? Your hormones just give you _so_ _many_ excuses to indulge in your inherited desires, don’t they?”

“You going somewhere with this?” Jaune called up to her, making Pyrrha throw a scowl his way.

The Succubus narrowed her eyes, then landed on the edge of a convenience store’s flat roof, folding her legs as she sat down and hiding her naked, drooling sex with her plump thighs. “I see that you aren’t as affected as you should be,” she said with a sigh heavy enough to make her ample breasts quake. “Such a shame, but I suppose that’s always the case. Anyone strong enough to be worth dominating would be able to make me work for it.”

“See? Hostile,” Pyrrha repeated. Then, she threw her spear.

The Succubus leaned backwards and let out a laugh as the blade rushed by her face, then tilted her head to smirk at Pyrrha over her jiggling breasts. “Was that it?” she asked.

Neither Jaune nor Pyrrha reacted – until the Succubus easily dodged the spear on its return trip to Pyrrha’s hand.

“Now, now,” she said, letting out another heavy sigh as she leaned forward again and stared down at them. “That was just rude, you know. Attacking my defenseless backside with such a _long_ spear,” she drawled, sighing yet again and smirking at the sight of Jaune’s continued erection beneath his pants. “I could’ve been hurt. Sore, even.”

Jaune sighed and shook his head. “Look, enough with this, okay? Your magic can’t affect us and she can’t hurt you while you’re up there, so why don’t you come down here and we fight for real?” he asked, prompting the Succubus to lift an eyebrow at him. “If you manage to win without killing us, well, I know some healing magic,” he added after a moment, making her smirk lustily at him.

“Hmm… Such a tempting offer,” she murmured, licking her lips as she raked her eyes over his body. “I suppose I can allow that. Breaking in my new toys is easier when I don’t need to wait for them to recover, after all.”

With a bounce and shimmy of her hips, she flung herself from the store’s roof, her wings snapping open behind her and easing her descent. Once on the street, she curled an arm beneath her breasts and bowed to her opponents, letting out a husky laugh that made her breasts quake and sway.

“Shall we begin?” she asked, laughing again at the look of mixed annoyance and lust in Pyrrha’s green eyes.

As Pyrrha charged at her shield-first, the Succubus snapped her hand to the side and, with a loud crack, summoned a simple whip made of black leather. She danced back nimbly as Pyrrha made a probing jab with her spear, then lashed out at her in return, her whip smacking the adventurer’s shield to the side and leaving a thunderclap in its wake. Her guard blown open, Pyrrha staggered back a step and righted herself, green eyes burning with anger as her opponent laughed again.

Shifting her spear into a sword, Pyrrha stepped forward cautiously, allowing the Succubus to lay another hefty hit against her shield before she made her move. With a pair of quick steps towards her, Pyrrha closed the distance and stabbed, only to grit her teeth as the Wild swayed around her attack – and then widen her eyes as she stepped towards her and kissed her.

Adrenaline mixing with the arousal she was still feeling beneath Jaune’s willpower-enhancing spell, Pyrrha froze for a moment at the feeling of silken lips brushing against her own. They seemed to warm as the Succubus trailed her tongue over them, vying for entry to leave her aphrodisiac-rich saliva inside the adventurer’s mouth rather than merely on her lips, but Pyrrha’s startled state didn’t let her part them, much like how it didn’t let her shove the Wild away.

Recovering her wits, Pyrrha made to stab her lusty “attacker” – only to gasp at the feeling of the Succubus’s tail drifting up beneath her skirt and sliding thickly against her panties.

Seconds later, her weapon and shield clattered to the ground as she embraced the Succubus and returned the kiss in earnest, hungrily drinking down the arousing fluid being fed into her mouth.

Jaune, standing on the sidelines, felt his eye twitch and his pants tighten at the sight. “Oh, for…” he grumbled, only to sigh as the Wild crooked a finger at him in a clear invitation. “That didn’t go the way I though it would,” he mumbled as he tentatively approached.

The Succubus laughed richly as she broke the kiss with Pyrrha, making the redhead whine piteously and try to restart it. She leaned towards her, only to find the Wild pushing her to the side, forcing her lips to meet Jaune’s. Uncaring, Pyrrha moaned and ran her tongue along his lower lip, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and grinding her crotch against his.

“And to think, these are the two who slaughtered my army,” the Succubus murmured as Pyrrha shared what was left of her latest dose Succubus saliva with the blonde. “I suppose they’ll be a good foundation for a new one, though,” she added, reaching down between her legs as Jaune lifted his hands to his partner’s chest.

‘Idiot,’ Jaune thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes as he made out with Pyrrha. Thanks to the redhead swallowing it, barely any of the Succubus’s saliva was left in her mouth, meaning he barely felt its effects; and, with his hands swallowed by the pillowy flesh of her breasts, the light emitted by the repeated casting of his willpower-boosting spell was minimized to the point that it was only barely visible in the noonday sunlight. ‘Guess it’s now or never,’ he added, steeling himself as he made ready to trigger the third spell he’d cast earlier.

Pyrrha, suddenly, found herself in complete control of her mental faculties, the Succubus’s saliva having been removed from her body magically. She paused in her frenzied kissing, only to find Jaune’s tongue rolling against her own a moment later as he began humping her. With a start, she realized what he’d down; after a moment of enjoying the taste of him and the way he was treating her, she came up with a plan.

“Hmm,” the Succubus murmured as Pyrrha broke the kiss and tilted her head back, moaning aloud as she stared up at the sky with half-lidded eyes. “Such a wondrous sight… I _suppose_ I can join in,” she continued, as if allowing herself an extra helping of ice cream after a difficult day at work.

As Jaune’s teeth tenderly raked along the nape of her neck, Pyrrha found another pair of arms encircling them and something long and sinuous writhing between her legs. She moaned huskily, not needing to fake her building desire or the crack in her voice as the Succubus’s tail slide against her still panty-clad slickness.

“Mind if I cut in?” the Succubus murmured breathily into her ear, making Pyrrha shiver and moan anew.

Before she could move, Pyrrha reached out with her power and grasped her sword, then sent it tumbling through the air into the Succubus’s back.

The Wild let out a ragged, pain-filled gasp and stumbled backwards, turning to see who had attacked her. Tearing herself from Jaune’s lustful embrace, Pyrrha lunged for her and grabbed her sword, then slid it further into the Succubus and pierced her heart.

Moments later, nothing was left of the powerful creature.

Save for its effects on Jaune, that is.

Pyrrha sighed, relieved by the death of her foe and amused by the blonde’s lips on her neck and arms around her waist. “I suppose this was always going to happen,” she murmured, collecting her gear with an exercise of her power as she started leading Jaune back to her room.

*             *             *             *             *             *

Pyrrha giggled as she once more tasted Jaune’s pre-cum drooling over her tongue, then again as the blonde groaned at the feeling of her tongue circling the head of his throbbing erection. She was both bewildered and somewhat frustrated by the level of control he seemed to have over himself, especially because she knew first-hand how it felt having that much of the Succubus’s aphrodisiac inside of her.

Still, as she stroked him the rest of the way to orgasm, she had trouble disliking the situation. The smooth spiciness of his barbecue-flavored semen slid onto her tongue and down her throat, making her swallow twice before she got all of it. She giggled as she jerked the last few drops out of him, making him groan again in both pleasure and mild discomfort.

Swallowing for a third time to clear the rest of it from her mouth, Pyrrha asked, “Feeling better?”

Jaune blinked at her a few times, then nodded shakily. “Y-Yeah, I’m… Did you just…?” he mumbled, trailing off as he glanced down at her kneeling figure. She lacked the shirt she’d worn earlier, instead merely wearing a red bra with ivy-like patterns of gold trailing over it.

“Yes,” Pyrrha answered a moment later, her cheeks warming as Jaune failed to finish his question. “You looked like you needed it. You probably felt like it, too, if you felt its saliva as strongly as I did,” she added, her blush deepening.

“Well, I…” he began, only to trail off. “Okay, that’s not normal,” he mumbled a moment later, staring down with a worried frown.

Pyrrha followed his gaze and was startled to see that his erection hadn’t diminished in the slightest. “Wow,” she said, wearing a small smile as she looked back up at him. “Still need some more, huh?”

“I…” he began, trailing off with a groan when she ducked her head back down and licked the tip of his cock. He didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence, or even to start it anew, as another groan left him when he felt her slide his cock between her breasts.

“Do you like them?” Pyrrha asked with another smile as she made sure that he wouldn’t chafe against her bra. “I’ve only done this a couple times before – and those were with, ah… a dildo, not a person, so…” She trailed off, blushing as she realized she’d accidentally let slip that she’d practiced with a sex toy.

Jaune merely nodded his head, an errant though that he had too little blood in his head to do anything else passing him by as she used her hands and forearms to squish her breasts around him more securely. Pyrrha’s breath spilling over his spit-slicked length as she let out a low sound made him groan, making her giggle in return.

‘He’s as big as Lucy,’ Pyrrha idly thought as she started bouncing her tits along his cock, reminded of the toy she’d left in her backpack. Soon, her breath caught in her thought at the warmth soaking into her breasts, and she was grateful she’d left her bra on, and not just because it helped her keep her boobs pressed together; it also prevented her from playing with her own nipples and making her lose her patience for foreplay.

Knowing that it was only a matter of time before that happened anyway, though, Pyrrha did her best to pick up the pace and get him off again before it could become an issue. Before long, both of them were panting and gasping in pleasure as the undersides of her breasts slapped against his twitching hips with every plunge. Pyrrha had to fight the urge to slide her legs against each other as her arousal soaked through her panties and trailed down her thighs, making them shine in the light leaking in through the room’s closed blinds.

Once she started kissing and licking the head of his dick every time it slid up from between her breasts, it didn’t take very long for Jaune to say, “I’m… I’m c-close.”

Pyrrha’s breath caught in her throat again, and she removed her chest from his cock and wrapped her hands around his throbbing length. With only a few more jerks and her mouth on his tip once more, she was soon swallowing another load of his semen, though not quite as much as his last – there was only enough to make her need to swallow once before she could stop without fear of drowning.

“Damn, th-that was…” Jaune mumbled, slumping down on the bed again – only to groan when he realized that even that hadn’t caused his erection to go down. “F-Fuck, really?” he asked softly, sitting up straight and worriedly staring down at his penis.

“Well,” Pyrrha began. She stood up, unclasping her bra and throwing it to the side as she said, “We could always go a bit further, you know.”

“Huh?” Jaune asked, blinking at her. Only a second later, he winced, cursing the lack of blood flow to his brain. “R-Right, uh… I-If you’re okay with it,” he said, making Pyrrha smile at him.

“Depends: does this look like I’m ‘okay with it’?” she asked, lifting her miniskirt and showing him just how wet she was. His eyes widened, and he let out a sound that was half-grunt, half-cough as she let her skirt drop back down.

“R-Right. Well, uh… Yeah. Let’s do this,” he said, wincing again at his enthusiastic tone. Pyrrha giggled, stripping off her skirt and panties in short order. As she moved to straddle him, he opened his mouth to say something – what, even he wasn’t sure of – only for her to press her lips to his and silence him.

“Enough of that,” she murmured against his lips, shifting her hips and grinding her damp sex along his hardness. “We both need this. Are you ready?”

He replied in the only way he could: by returning her kiss. She moaned into his mouth, allowing his tongue entry into hers as, with her hands on his shoulders for leverage, she lifted her hips and tried to put his cock into her pussy. After a moment, he used his, planting one on her supple thigh – and giving it a firm squeeze in the process, drawing another moan from her – and used his other to line himself up with her entrance. After a moment to steady herself, Pyrrha slowly sank down onto his length, head tilting back as every nerve inside her sex seemed to spark to life and flood her body with the sheer, raw sensation of him filling her.

After she’d only slid halfway down his length, she found her release.

It made her collapse further down, her legs unable to support her weight and grant her a controlled descent, which drew a pained gasp from her despite the pleasure soaking into her. Jaune, startled, met her eyes with a fearful, timid expression and immediately asked, “Are you okay?”

Despite the tears welling in her eyes, Pyrrha laughed and nodded. “Yes, I think so,” she said, giving him a kiss as chaste as one could be, given their circumstances. “You’re just… big, is all. I wasn’t ready to take it all that quickly.”

“O-Oh.”

After a few moments spent adjusting to the way he stretched her pussy, Pyrrha wrapped her arms around Jaune’s shoulders and lifted her hips. A soft, nearly silent whimper left her lips, the feeling of his length sliding along inside of her spurring her to move faster despite the little bit of lingering pain she felt. He groaned beneath her, hands on her hips to steady her as she started bouncing on his cock in earnest.

With such a beautiful woman in his lap, her face twisting with pleasure and her breasts shaking so wildly in front of his face, Jaune felt like he was going to lose his mind. When he realized that, among her myriad of moans, groans, and whimpers, his name leaked from her lips, he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He bucked his hips upwards, somewhat awkwardly, to meet her downward momentum and was rewarded with a sharp, pleasured gasp from his lover, as well as her inner walls clamping down on his cock.

Biting back a chuckle, Jaune repeated the feat, trying to make sure his rhythm matched hers to the best of his ability. With what little focus he had left, he raised one of his hands from her hips to her breast, catching the heaving globe and squeezing it tenderly, making her snap her head down to stare at him. Before he could ask if he’d done anything wrong, her lips were on his once more, hungrily kissing him as she sped up the pace of her hips even further.

Their feverish kiss didn’t break until Pyrrha felt his cock rub along a very special place within her, making her back stiffen as she tilted her head back and gasped with utter ecstasy. Unfortunately for both of them, Jaune was too distracted – by the suddenly broken kiss, by what he was doing with his hand, and by the Succubus saliva still coursing through him – to realize what had happened; he simply lowered his head to plant kisses along her neck and collarbone, occasionally nipping her tender flesh whenever his instincts told him to.

Even with Jaune careless of what his wild thrusting had brushed against, Pyrrha still felt herself rapidly approached another release. When it came – when she came – her orgasm tore through her like a lightning bolt, leaving her breathless and warm.

And sapping the strength from her legs.

She collapsed onto Jaune, her chest heaving against his as she desperately refilled her lungs. It took the lust-addled blonde a moment to realize what had happened, but he stilled his bucking hips and looked at her, asking, “Are you… Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” Pyrrha replied, her voice cracking as she smiled at him. “V-… _Very_ okay. Just… Just tired, I guess. Long day, after all.”

“Okay… Uh, so…”

“Yes, please continue,” she said, her smile widening as she answered his question before he had a chance to ask it.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jaune said, grasping her buttocks with both hands and standing up, making the redhead gasp in surprise and pleasure as the motion ground his hardness into her. He turned around slowly and, with just as much caution, placed Pyrrha down so she was laying on her back. With a heated kiss, he moved his hands to her hips and started moving again.

Pyrrha moaned against his lips, the taste of his tongue nearly as overwhelming to her senses as the pulsing cock being rammed into her increasingly sensitive pussy. Her whole body shook with every rapid thrust, making her stiff nipples brush against his chest as her breasts jiggled incessantly, managing to give her even more pleasure than what had already driven her to two separate orgasms. Mustering the strength to wrap her arms around her lover’s back and her legs around his waist took enough effort to embarrass her, making her cheeks redden as she gasped and moaned.

Despite how weak she felt, though, Pyrrha’s thighs grasped Jaune’s hips with a frightening strength, enough to slow him nearly to a halt until he figured out that he could make short, rapid thrusts without much issue. Still, he wasn’t sure if she was getting as much from it as he was – and he was already pretty close to begin with, thanks to the heaven of tight, wet softness her pussy seemed to be made from. It took an effort of his spell-boosted willpower to keep himself from filling her with his seed as her nails raked his back, as she tightened yet again around his length.

Which made him realize something.

“W-Wait,” he mumbled against Pyrrha’s lips, eyes going wide with sudden fear. “B-Birth control…”

“E-… Earring,” she murmured back, between gasps for breath. She tilted her head to the side, letting the bronze teardrop dangling from a slender chain that pierced her ear. “M-Magic.”

“Okay. I-In that case!” Jaune exclaimed, increasing his speed again and making her squeal in delight. With a sharp grunt, he let himself reach orgasm for the third time, unleashing a torrent of alabaster relief into his lover; she groaned at the feeling of liquid warmth filling her, at the shiver that ran up her spine, and grinned dopily at him. His legs shook as he gave a few final thrusts, making sure he’d gotten it all out, before he pulled out entirely and let out a sigh as he stared at his softening member.

“W-Wow,” Pyrrha mumbled, lowering a hand to her slickness and covering it with her closed fingers, keeping his semen from drooling out of her and onto the bedsheets.

“Y-Yeah,” Jaune said, panting, as he sat down beside her. With a weary smile and another sigh, he added, “I never thought I’d be _happy_ to go soft before,” making Pyrrha laugh.

For a long few minutes, the two were silent save for their steadily stabilizing breathing. Jaune cleaned himself off with a pair of washcloths Pyrrha had handed him before closing the bathroom door behind her, and he’d retrieved a pair of water bottles from the vending machine in the hallway after putting his pants back on. By the time she’d returned, wearing a fresh pair of panties, he’d found and put on his shirt as well.

“So,” he began, looking away as she dressed, “not to… well, not to bring us down after what we just did, but…”

“You’re wondering what you should do next, aren’t you?” Pyrrha asked, smiling as she pulled on her bra. “Well, like we discussed earlier, I’m more than willing to help you get home.”

“No, it’s…” Jaune began, only to trail off. He took a sip of water as he composed his thoughts, then said, “It’s about that Succubus. She… She was Wild, right?”

“Yes. Why?”

“She could talk. She could think, plan, all that stuff. Why? How?”

“Some Wilds are capable of something resembling sapience. It isn’t true sapience, of course, because then they’d have free will and the ability to not be disgustingly violent towards all Varyn,” Pyrrha said plainly, wondering where Jaune’s train of thought was leading him.

“But… Why don’t people know about it? Why isn’t that common knowledge? Isn’t it more dangerous to not have that information available to the public so people don’t start thinking that these ‘sapient’ Wilds are tragic souls that need to be shown love and kindness to be redeemed?”

“I have a feeling I won’t like where you’re going with this.”

“This is something you knew, which means it’s most likely something that the Adventurers’ Guild knows as a whole,” Jaune explained, drawing a small nod from Pyrrha. “But it isn’t common knowledge. Why not? Why are they keeping it from the world?”

“I don’t know. I had to find out on my own, and the only reason I don’t still have the scar to prove it is because I’ve rescued a doctor from a bandit tribe since then,” Pyrrha said. “I’ll admit, I haven’t given it as much thought as you seem to be. And those questions… I don’t think the answers will be kind to the Guild.”

“Yeah, it’s worrying, isn’t it?” Jaune turned around to see that Pyrrha was now fully dressed. Sitting down next to her on the couch in the small living space her rented room afforded them, he added, “So, I’d kind of like to find out why.”

“Oh, no,” Pyrrha sighed.

“I know I don’t know how to fight, and I _am_ still planning on heading home for the time being, but I think this is something I need to do, Pyrrha. Think about it: I fell through a hole in space-time, just happened to be saved from a Wild Grizzlar by you, and you took me to town just in time to encounter a sapient Wild Succubus together. If that’s all just one big coincidence… I think it’s easier to just call it ‘fate’ at this point,” he finished, shrugging a shoulder when she gave him a dirty look.

After a moment, she sighed again. “Fine. I’ll accept that you find it hard that all of that could be a coincidence. I’ll even give you that it could be that someone arranged some of that to happen. But don’t call it fate, please,” she said.

“O-… Okay. I guess.”

“Well, since I don’t want you to manage to stupidly get yourself killed trying to talk a Wild into not eating you,” Pyrrha said dryly, though she couldn’t hide the genuine concern in her voice, “I’ll help you join the Guild. I’ll even teach you how to fight, if you don’t mind.”

“Why would I mind?” Jaune asked.

“Some guys can get kind of defensive when a woman proves herself to be better than they are.”

“Yeah, I don’t really understand that. Everyone’s got things they’re good at, after all, and there’s always someone better than you. We might as well just try to learn what we can whenever we’ve got the chance.”

Pyrrha chuckled at the simple, idealistic statement, but she nodded at him approvingly. “Good. Oh, but before we head downstairs to start on the paperwork, would you mind answering a question?”

“Sure.”

“What species are you?”

“Daemon. You?”

“Themeide.”

“Uh…”

“An advanced Nymph that has an innate ability to find relics of deific import, as well as an instinctive desire to protect them,” Pyrrha explained, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Speaking of: do you have an inkling of what you’d like to advance into?”

“I’d rather just let it happen, to be honest,” Jaune said, scratching his cheek sheepishly as she led him out of the room.

“Really? It’s what you’d be for the rest of your life.”

“Yeah, but… I mean, I’d still be me, at least. And if it was really bad for some reason, I’d be able to save up and get a Sidelong ritual, wouldn’t I?”

“Fair enough, I suppose.”


	3. Prologue 3: The Quickest Heist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter introduces one of the odder pairings you'll see in this story. If you read the tags, you already know - but I see no reason to say it again.

_“Sucker.”_

_Emerald Sustrai couldn’t help a giggle as she sorted through the contents of the wallet she’d stolen, counting up the bills and noting the unfortunate – for her – lack of any credit cards. Like most of her marks, she’d taken this one’s belongings while he’d been distracted by one of her illusions, deceiving him into thinking that a chatty young woman with a low neckline had been asking him for directions. Unlike most of her marks, however, he hadn’t given a damn about her, so Emerald had gone with merely frustrating him with the illusion until he started yelling at it, giving her plenty of time to slip in under a veil and lift his wallet._

_She folded the excess of bills and tucked them away into the pouch she wore on her oversized belt, which was long enough that it needed to be wrapped around the waist of her white pants twice. She sighed contentedly as she leaned forward, brushing away a bit of dirt her calf-length chaps had picked up at some point._

_“What to do next?” she murmured to herself as she stood back up, a smile tilting her lips as she noticed the way her bosom bounced in her shallow-cut olive crop top. “Hmm… Been a while since I distracted someone with myself… Nah, I’ve still got some dignity,” she said with a low chuckle. She leaned back against one of the walls forming the alley she’d hidden in, looking up at the sky as her smile faded and was replaced with a frown. “That’s right, it’s been two weeks, hasn’t it? Guess I need to sucker someone into giving me some hormones, then, huh?”_

_“The fact that you refer to it like that is depressing, Emerald.”_

_She was off the wall instantly, drawing the simple knife she kept at her back as she faced the teenaged woman – not much younger than Emerald herself – who’d appeared in the alley with her – only to slowly cock her head to the side as she realized that the woman was, in fact, completely naked, covered in dirt and…_

_“What the…?” Emerald mumbled, revolted by some of the things covering the slender woman._

_“Yes, I know,” she said with a sigh, tilting a hand towards herself and conjuring a slim jet of water to remove the worst of the grime. “I’m quite a sight, aren’t I? We reap what we sow, after all.”_

_“What…? No, you know what?... Wait, how did you know my name?” Emerald asked, a dozen different thoughts warring for precedence within her mind._

_“Because we knew each other. In the previous version of this timeline, at least.”_

_“I’m done here,” Emerald declared, turning on her heel and stalking away from the filthy woman washing herself._

_“Emerald Sustrai, member of the now-defunct Sustrai family of nobility,” the woman said, making the thief freeze in her tracks. “Sold into slavery in a haphazard and unsuccessful attempt by your mother to halt your family’s fall from grace. After two years of enduring all manner of things, you were purchased by the Silicon Dream and taught the art of thievery, which you were ultimately too successful at for their good – after stealing the Prime Emerald from the sultan of Giost and the ‘virginity’ of his twenty-year-old daughter, you pinned your crimes on your owner and only stuck around long enough to make sure he wouldn’t be coming after you.”_

_“H-How do you…?” Emerald mumbled, staring fearfully at her._

_“The answer is simple, Ms. Sustrai: you told me,” the woman said, running her fingers through her long black hair as she stared back; her calm and careful amber eyes meeting the frightened crimson of the thief’s, she added, “My name is Cinder Fall.”_

*             *             *             *             *             *

_“You’re up.”_

As the words crackled through her earpiece, Summer Rose couldn’t help but smile – a smile that quickly disappeared as she watched another of the manor’s slaves walk on the streets beneath her, looking as downtrodden and spiteful as she had when Summer had last scouted the building. She was dressed in a maid’s uniform that had been worn ragged from months of abuse, and carried no umbrella despite the downpour; the water had soaked her hair nearly the instant she’d left the building, making her bangs curl in front of her face in a way that made the older woman feel a tremor course through her.

‘As if I needed another excuse,’ Summer chided herself, shaking her head fiercely to shed the mental image of her daughter being put through something similar. She took a long breath; then, her white cloak flaring out behind her with the motion, she jumped – off the eight-story tall building.

Mid-leap, soft silver light engulfed her body, enshrouding her form as she shrank down into a bat, one so small that its torso was barely the size of a coin. Her wings snapped out to the sides and caught the air rushing around her, letting her glide the rest of the way to the elevated outcropping she’d noticed on one of her previous scouting expeditions. Once she’d reached it, she pushed her wings forward and let the claw-like fingers at the ends of each grasp onto the marble surface.

Summer blinked the transparent set of eyelids her bat form came equipped with as she climbed the rest of the way onto the manor’s roof, keeping her eyes clear of the rain. After a brief few moments spent making certain she was alone on the roof, she shifted back into her normal form with the same display of light, letting out a silent sigh at the warm comfort of her cloak settling back into place over her shoulders.

“I’m in,” Summer murmured into the microphone up her sleeve as she pulled a folded tarp out from the backpack she wore beneath her cloak. She tossed it onto the rain-slicked tiles beneath her and set to work.

The spell array was at once simple and painfully complex to the Vampire. She smoothed it out to the best of her ability as she unfolded it, trying to make sure the vast network of lines and curving patterns was wrinkle-free while she pinned its edges down with the rocks she and her companions had gathered earlier. After a moment spent looking over her work, Summer nodded to herself and spoke into her microphone again.

Before she’d even finished speaking, the array sparked to light with a hum only barely audible over the pounding of rain. One instant, naught but air and water stood above it; the next, a man and a woman were there.

“Gah, I hate teleporting,” the man said, his dark grey eyes glaring into Summer’s silver as she giggled at him. Like Summer and their other associate, he’d foregone his usual attire in exchange for a form-fitting black ensemble that would help conceal his identity, up to and including a hooded cloak and a face-mask.

“Quiet, Mercury,” the other woman said, turning to look at the manor’s rooftop entrance. Even beneath her cloak, Summer could tell that the woman was young – nineteen at the most – despite the confidence and maturity in her tone.

“Feels like being electrocuted,” Mercury Black mumbled, wiping his steadily dampening hair out of his eyes and looking away from the teenaged woman.

“Do you mean the teleportation or Autumn telling you to shush?” Summer asked, her lips quirking in a smile.

Autumn Asher, as she’d renamed herself only a few short years ago, scowled at the two of them, then turned her gaze back to the enclosed stairwell leading into the manor. “Where’s our distraction, Rose?” Autumn asked without looking at the white-cloaked woman.

“Don’t worry: Vernal is very good at…” Summer began, only to trail off as the sounds of raised voices reached her ears. Moments later, a blast of viridian lightning tore through the sky and smashed down right in front of the manor, followed shortly by another half dozen. It was enough to tear up the cobblestone walkway, and drew more than a dozen shouting guards as it drove away terrified civilians. “Being distracting,” she finished, swallowing a giggle.

“Let’s get this done, then,” Mercury said, walking over to the door and trying the knob. Seeing that it was locked, he pulled out a set of picks and got to work, unlocking the simple tumbler mechanism with only a few seconds of effort. “Okay, _now_ let’s get it done,” he added, standing back up and wiping more rain from his eyes.

Once inside, Summer took a brief moment to glance at the architecture and wonder just how much the curved ceiling and intricate molding had cost, especially considering the dark brown wood looked like it hadn’t been painted. Once the door closed behind her, she shook those thoughts from her mind and followed her two partners in crime.

Thanks to Autumn’s knowledge of the building’s layout, the three of them swiftly made their way down to the fifth floor and into the nearly empty security room therein. There were only two guards remaining after the rest had gone down to see to the disturbance outside the manor – easily knocked unconscious by a swift kick from Mercury and the hilt of one of Summer’s daggers.

“Okay, what’s next?” Summer asked softly, glancing over at Autumn as the youthful woman stepped over the slumped over guard and started typing away at one of the keyboards.

“Hmm… The safe’s not where I remember,” Autumn mumbled to herself, eyes flicking back and forth as she examined the feeds from the various security cameras. “Still on the third floor, but in a different room.”

“Does that change anything?”

“Not necessarily; it could simply be due to an error of memory made because of what little arrogance I’ve managed to leave behind. We should still be cautious, though.”

“We should always be cautious,” Mercury chimed in, prompting the two women to look over at where he’d been busy tying up the two guards. “Otherwise, we’ll end up like these losers,” he added, tapping one of them on the forehead as he rose to his feet.

“Arrogance is a flaw, Mercury,” Autumn warned him. “I know it a–…”

“All too well. Yeah, yeah, heard it before. Like, a hundred times before,” he interrupted, waving her off. “Now, can we get going? I don’t know how good your team is, Rose, but they won’t be able to distract the guards forever.”

“Right,” Summer said. “I think we’ve got another ten minutes or so before we see the full force of the manor’s security back in the halls, but who knows how many of them will return in the meantime.”

“Then we’ll make haste,” Autumn said, plugging a thumb-sized drive into the computer and triggering the program it held. As they left, the cameras watching the halls began to loop, preventing them from showing up on the security feed – and, more importantly, the recordings.

The trip down to the third floor was uneventful save for a few seconds spent hiding around the corner from a small group of guards. After that, they easily found their way to the room the safe was in, at which point Mercury put his lockpicking skills to use once more.

“What do you mean, you can’t pick it?” Summer asked, her voice hushed as she shot a dirty look at the grey-haired young man.

“Rotary lock; ‘pick’ is the wrong word,” Mercury explained as Autumn handed him a toy stethoscope – still functional, but such a bright shade of pink that it seemed to brighten the dim moonlight creeping into the bedroom from the windows. “It’ll take me a minute, is all. Then we leave.”

“Hurry, then,” Summer said, watching out through the cracked open doorway. As Mercury set himself to his task, listening intently at the door of the safe as he slowly turned the dial, Summer bit her lip as her heart picked up its pace within her chest. A familiar flutter of anxiety passed through her, making her scan the hallway more intently than before, until a grunt from behind made her jump.

“Sorry,” Mercury said in a murmur, not needing to look behind him to see the scowl Summer had thrown his way. “Old habits die hard.” He grunted again a few seconds later, having found the second number in the lock’s code.

Summer turned her gaze back out through the door again, continuing to stare out even as the manor’s lord entered her vision – right as Mercury let out a third and final grunt. She waved her hand, prompting Autumn to tap Mercury on the shoulder as he opened the safe, giving him agreed-upon code to tell him to stop and hide.

Summer ducked further behind the doorway and shifted into her bat form, then flew up to the top of one of the four posts surrounding the bed; amongst the curtains dangling from the rods held between them, she’d need to be invisible to be any more hidden. Mercury spun the dial another few notches, relocking the safe, before he dashed over to the nearby bathroom and darted behind the door. Autumn, meanwhile, tossed herself to the ground and rolled beneath the bed just in time for the door to swing open.

“Damn fools,” growled Augustus nir’Vochel as he stormed into his bedroom. A nest of writhing serpents drooping from his head instead of hair, their violet scales matching the hue of his eyes and the thick cloak draped over his shoulders; his boots were unlaced, which – combined with his pajama bottoms and lack of a shirt – made him look disheveled. “I should fire those damn guards. Couldn’t find one damn jackass who disturbs my sleep… Bah! I’ll just cut their paychecks. That’ll show them.”

Summer’s eyes locked on to the man with hateful vigor; the reminder of how the nobility tended to think in Havrin made her remember why she’d made her home in Joulle, on a completely different continent.

Still, Summer forcibly reminded herself that she had a job to do. After a few calming breaths – by which time Augustus had removed his boots and settled himself back down on the bed – she cast a simple spell at him, one she’d gotten a lot of practice with thanks to the time she’d spent with her children when they’d been young.

Augustus, already fatigued and trying to fall back asleep, was taken unawares by Summer’s spell and forced into a deeper unconsciousness than he’d have naturally fallen into. She laid it on him again, sending him halfway into a coma, before she flew down from the posts and took her true form again.

“Okay, we’re good,” Summer said, keeping her voice soft as she eyed the now-locked door suspiciously. “Let’s get the thing and get out.”

“Exit route?” Mercury asked, emerging from the bathroom as Autumn pulled herself out from beneath the bed and Summer repeated her spell three more times, a hateful scowl marring her face.

“We have to assume there’s a guard outside the door,” Autumn murmured. After a moment, she turned to the window. “Hmm… That’ll work.”

*             *             *             *             *             *

_“So, did you, ah, buy that dress you wanted?”_

Autumn couldn’t help but smile at her Remora, showing the woman on the other end of the video call just how happy and content she was. “Yes, Emerald. It was a bit tight at first, but those little tricks you showed me helped out a lot.”

Emerald sighed, relieved, then asked, _“So, how is everything? You were a bit quiet during the group call earlier.”_

“Being around those sisters of yours has given you a different definition of quiet, Miss _Rose_ ,” Autumn said teasingly, smirking at the blush that rose on the dusky-skinned woman’s cheeks.

_“I’ll admit that Ruby is a… challenging person to get used to, but I think I’m better off for knowing her. Thanks again for introducing me to her mother, Autumn.”_

“Okay, that was cute the first hundred times you thanked me, Emerald, but now it’s just getting sad.”

_“Shut up!”_

“That’s better! Now, with more feeling! Puff out your chest!” Emerald just eyed the seemingly teenaged woman warily after her exclamation, making Autumn clear her throat and continue, despite her embarrassment. “Perhaps spending such a prolonged time around Summer and her extended family has had an effect on me, as well.”

_“For the better, right?”_

“Considering I essentially ended the world in the previous timeline? It can only be a good thing.”

Emerald flinched, making Autumn sigh; despite the years that had past since she’d first started believing her, Emerald still found Cinder Fall’s – and her own – role in ushering in a demonic warrior that swiftly conquered the world to be a terrifying thought, one that frequently found its way into her nightmares. _“So, uh, moving on… How is everyone doing together? You know: you and Summer, Mercury and Vernal?”_

“Mercury and Vernal have had some issues, but, judging by the fact that this hotel clearly doesn’t have good soundproofing, I think they’re working through some of those issues right now,” Autumn said dryly, making Emerald laugh. “As for myself and Summer… I think it’ll take more time before we can really get comfortable around each other. I don’t blame her for that, though, not after what I did before. Spending this much time with her has made me feel less willing to use lethal measures against our foes, though, even against myself from this period.”

_“Well, uh… That’s good?”_

“Potentially. It might wind up biting me in the future.”

_“Speaking of biting…”_ Emerald said with a smile, making Autumn look over her shoulder at the woman who’d just entered their shared hotel room. _“Hi, Summer.”_

“Hi Emerald. I see we all had the same idea,” Summer said, smiling at the Remora’s camera.

_“I’m guessing you were talking to Ruby?”_

“She had a few questions about her new friend,” Summer explained, settling herself down on the edge of one of the twin beds. “Things like how to approach certain topics with her, how to explain a few things in terms she’d be more likely to understand; you know, things like that.”

_“The Synthoid she’s been telling us about?”_

“Yes. Penny, if I’m remembering right. Are you planning on going with them?”

_“Yep. Someone has to keep Ruby fed, after all.”_

“I think Yang would be _more_ than happy to handle that alone.”

Emerald let out a harrumph and folded her arms over her chest, tilting her head back in a way that made the collar she wore bounce on her neck; having it forced into her view like that made Summer’s eye twitch. _“I know, but I won’t let her.”_

“Because it’s unhealthy for someone to lose that much blood that often? Or because you’d be super jealous of Ruby’s teeth on her?” Summer asked with a grin, making Emerald sputter and blush.

“I’ve always found it better to not talk about Emerald’s pet-play fetish unless she brings up the topic _first_ , Summer,” Autumn advised, her cheeks twitching as she fought to keep a straight face.

“It’s hard not to with her flaunting that collar every chance she gets,” Summer admitted with a sigh. Looking straight into the tablet’s camera, she added, “I’m sorry, Emerald. I just never thought my little girl would wind up putting collars on _three_ of her sisters, is all. I thought at least _some_ of my daughters would have tastes that were more… vanilla, I guess.”

Emerald sputtered again at that, but managed to compose herself after only a few moments. _“Well, at least we’re secure enough in what we like that we don’t feel a need to indulge in it at every opportunity,”_ Emerald said, prompting a few nods from Summer. _“Like some people,”_ she added after a moment, making Summer frown at her.

“Now, that’s not fair. Qrow has enough to deal with without you prodding at his alcoholism like that,” Summer said, folding her arms over her chest as she let out an aggravated huff.

_“You mean his ‘coping mechanism’?”_ Emerald asked. _“That’s what he called it the last time he was here, you know.”_

“Really? That’s… new. The last time we talked about it, he told me that he knew he had a problem,” Summer mumbled, her expression making her worry plain.

_“Anyway, uh… Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Autumn,”_ Emerald said, making the youthful woman sigh.

“Any time, Emerald,” Autumn said, smiling at the camera.

_“Your name still sucks, by the way.”_

“Emerald.”

_“No, seriously. All you did was pick two synonyms and reverse the order. Real creative there, Autumn.”_

“Looks like I’ll be texting Ruby and telling her not to take you for any walks any time soon,” Autumn said, making Emerald’s eyes widen.

_“You wouldn’t dare.”_

“Try me,” Autumn said. She then hung up, then set the Remora down and turned to face Summer with a small, patient smile. She lifted a finger when Summer opened her mouth to speak, silently telling the Vampire to wait for a while longer.

Less than a minute later, her tablet let out a trilling beep and shook on the desk. She picked it up, opened the message Emerald had sent her, and then, chuckling, showed it to Summer.

Beneath the word “Sorry!” lay a selfie of Emerald, who’d taken off her top and cupped an arm beneath her chest before pouting at the camera. Though her breasts were by no means large, the effect was still impressive, enough to make Summer whistle appreciatively.

“Wow,” Summer said, letting out a laugh of her own. “You know her well.”

“I _did_ spend close to two decades with her in an alternate timeline, after all,” Autumn said, shrugging a shoulder as she set her tablet back down.

“As you keep mentioning.”

“It keeps coming up, but I’ll try to keep mention of it to a minimum going forward, Mrs. Rose.”

Summer giggled and rolled her eyes at the thick layer of sarcasm in Autumn’s voice. After a moment, though, silence reigned in their hotel room – well, it would have if not for the gasping and moaning coming through the wall from the room next door.

After another moment, Summer asked, “So… You think we can’t be friends?”

“Huh?” Autumn asked, bewildered by the sudden question.

“I heard you, earlier, you know. When you said it would take more time for us to be comfortable around each other,” Summer said, giving her a weak smile.

“Oh, that. I… You remember what I told you, yes? How… How your daughter and I… were at odds, in the other timeline?” Autumn asked, wincing with nearly every pause.

“Yes, I remember. I still remember how angry and scared I was when you first told me, too,” Summer said, wrapping her arms around her middle as she leaned forward and stared at the ground. “It… It’s not a good feeling, you know.”

“Then…”

“But that doesn’t mean I haven’t forgiven you,” Summer said, cutting off Autumn before she could continue. “I mean, you traveled through time just for a chance to make things right. You looked for the people who you hurt and tried to help them instead. You’re actively trying to stop your old self from doing the things you did, and you’re leaving her letters and notes to try to make _her_ be a better person, too.”

Autumn grimaced and looked away, trying to hide the blush that had risen on her cheeks – and she was about as successful at that as she’d been at hiding the fact that she was leaving messages for Cinder to find.

“I don’t know the person you used to be, Autumn, but I’m pretty sure you’re a much better person now than you used to be.”

“That’s not…” Autumn began, only to trail off with a sigh. “That doesn’t mean that everything I did is undone,” she mumbled a moment later.

“Says the time traveler.”

“I thought you didn’t like me talking about that? What, _you’re_ allowed to?”

“Yes. It’s the hypocrisy you should’ve known you’d one day be on the receiving end of when you decided to tell me about what you did in the other timeline,” Summer said, only to giggle a moment after she’d finished her sentence. “Sorry, that’s… Wow. Never thought I’d say something like that.”

“It _was_ a bit of an odd statement,” Autumn added, a small smile appearing on her own lips. “So, what brings you here?” she asked. When Summer raised an eyebrow at her, she added, “To my room, while I was still on the phone with Emerald.”

“My room, too. But you’re right: I wanted to talk about what we took.”

Autumn nodded, stood, and pulled the device out of her pocket – she’d changed into a loose-fitting red sweater that trailed down her shoulder, but had kept on the black pants she’d worn for the theft. “Here,” she said, showing the thumb-sized hard drive to Summer. “Everything anyone knows about the Pact of Salem, courtesy of the Havrini Empire.”

“All on less than a terabyte, huh?” Summer mumbled darkly as she took the drive from her. “That’s not enough, is it?”

“To counter it? Not by a long shot. But it was enough for me to use it for my purposes,” Autumn said with a grimace. “This won’t slow Cinder for long. If she needs to, she’ll attack the Empress herself if it means getting the information.”

“Well, stealing it here means that the Empress will probably tighten the guard around every other potential source, right?”

“Yes. I just don’t know if it’ll be enough.”

“We can always find Cinder and take her out, right?”

“I doubt it. I was… egotistical, yes, but I was still far more powerful than anyone I’d ever met and smart enough to establish a passive, always-on defensive mechanism. But, like the rest of my power, it was stripped of me when I was cursed into… this,” Autumn said distastefully, gesturing down at her body.

“You’re sick of being a teenager again?”

“On the bright side, it’s only for another few months. I’ll qualify for the Guild then, at least. It’ll make some things easier, assuming I can get enough of an identity together to pass their inspections.”

“We’ve got that covered. Well, Stellar Industries, I mean. Not me, specifically.”

Autumn raised an eyebrow at the Vampire, making her scratch her cheek sheepishly as she looked away and whistled softly. “Would you mind if I had that back?”

“Huh? Oh, sure,” Summer said, giving the drive back to Autumn, who set it down onto the desk before seating herself on the edge of the other bed. “So, uh… What you said about being comfortable around each other…”

“I’m almost afraid to ask where you’re going with this,” Autumn noted aloud as Summer trailed off, seeming to search for the right words.

“Well, look: to become accustomed to a stimulus, you have to expose yourself to that stimulus repeatedly,” Summer began, making Autumn raise an eyebrow. “So, just spending time together could make it easier for us to be comfortable around each other, you know? Plus, I, uh… may be a _little_ bit hungry… Just a little.”

“Very well,” Autumn said, shifting her sweater so it bared more of her shoulder and collarbone. “Would you like something to drink, Mrs. Rose?” Autumn asked, wearing a thin smile as she gestured to her exposed flesh.

“You know you’re sitting down, right? And how that can make this a bit awkward if we’re not… you know, in a certain kind of relationship?” Summer asked, glancing down at the bed Autumn was sitting on.

“I’m aware. It’s entirely possible I plan on exploiting your likely response to this.”

“Oh?”

“It’s… been a little while since I last took in any Alpha,” Autumn admitted, shaking her head as Summer giggled.

“Not even with Mercury?”

“I filled him in on the… grittier details of the previous timeline too recently to trouble him with that.”

“Really? He doesn’t seem to be treating you any differently.”

“His father taught him how to hide his emotions well, but I can see through those tricks with a bit of effort. At least, I think so; it’s been… a long time since I’ve had the opportunity,” Autumn finished in a mumble, casting her eyes down to hide the grief within them.

“Hey,” Summer said firmly, startling Autumn enough to make her look up again, “don’t think like that, okay? Even _if_ you’re right – which is a big if – then he’s probably just having trouble adjusting to it all. I know it took _me_ a while to even _believe_ that you were from the future, much less accept that you were some kind of avatar of destruction or whatever it was you called Cinder.”

“True enough, but… I still don’t want to ask him to do that with me while he’s acclimating,” Autumn said, letting out a despondent sigh.

“Then do it with me,” Summer said simply, clearing the space between them and sitting down on the seemingly younger woman’s lap. Autumn was briefly startled, but then chuckled and nodded. “How do you want to start? My needs or yours?”

“I can handle the taste of blood, if I must. Feel free to…” Autumn began, only to be cut off by Summer’s lips pressing firmly against her own. She chuckled at the abruptness, but returned the kiss immediately, letting her tongue brush against the Vampire’s as they traded both saliva and Alpha hormones.

After a little over a minute, they broke apart, both breathing heavily. Autumn chuckled again as she realized her hands had made their way to Summer’s hips, helping steady the seemingly older woman who’d wrapped her arms around her; the realization that she hadn’t noticed in the heat of things made her worry, but she put that to the side for the moment.

“Did you have enough, yet?” Summer asked, her smile soft as silk as she stared down at Autumn.

“Hmm… For now,” Autumn said vaguely, making Summer laugh. “Onto your needs, then?”

“If you’re ready.”

“I am.”

Summer nodded, then dipped her head to Autumn’s neck; it wasn’t the most awkward position she’d ever fed in, but the way she was curving her own neck and spine to make up for their difference in height made it less than comfortable. She licked the curve between her partner’s neck and shoulder a few times, wordlessly telling her where she was planning on biting, before Autumn put a finger against her forehead.

“I thought this was supposed to make us more comfortable with each other, Summer,” Autumn said. “The way you’re bending seems a bit… painful.”

“What would you suggest, then?” A moment later, they’d switched positions, with Autumn sitting in Summer’s lap instead. “Okay, this is a lot better,” Summer admitted, her hands going to Autumn’s hips to keep her stable.

“I thought it would be. You’re used to people being taller than you, aren’t you?”

“Maybe a little,” Summer admitted before she dipped her head back to Autumn’s neck. Once again, she licked her chosen spot a few times before she bit down, letting her partner brace herself for the pain.

It was brief, over before she’d expected it to be; Autumn actually blinked with surprise when she realized that Summer had only used her fangs to make a pair of small incisions. As the Vampire gently licked and nursed at the minor injury, Autumn wondered why she’d thought that Summer would leave her fangs inside of her while she drank. They wouldn’t do much more than block any shed blood if they weren’t hollow, after all.

She didn’t drink much, either. Autumn had expected enough lost blood to feel a bit tired or sick, but when Summer lifted her head only two minutes later, she wasn’t even dizzy. “How much did you take?” Autumn asked, her bewildered tone prompting another giggle from Summer.

“Only a couple of fluid ounces. Vampires don’t need a lot to keep going, but we need enough that we can’t feed on just one person all the time,” Summer explained, licking some of the red from her lips – and surprising Autumn again when it actually came off; blood was usually hard to remove.

“Interesting. I don’t know why I didn’t know that.”

“Well, here’s something else you probably don’t know,” Summer said, cupping her hands beneath Autumn’s plump posterior, making her let out a small, surprised sound. “I don’t like to hurt people all that much,” she said, kneading her leather-clad cheeks and drawing a moan from her, “so, when I have to feed on anyone, I like to give a little something in return.”

Autumn chuckled, murmuring, “This would’ve been easier if I was wearing my dress, wouldn’t it?”

“ _Way_ easier,” Summer agreed.

It took more than a little maneuvering, but they eventually managed to get Autumn’s pants and underwear off without her ever fully leaving Summer’s lap – after which she felt the Vampire’s soft hands return to her posterior. Autumn’s chuckle quickly turned into another moan as Summer groped her, her arms wrapping around her newfound lover’s shoulders as she leaned into her grip.

“Do you always play with your food?” Autumn asked, chuckling again as Summer’s cheeks turned pink. Before she could reply, Autumn leaned further in and kissed her, making the Vampire moan – and get a bit rougher with her rear.

“Only when it lets me,” Summer said, giggling, as Autumn gasped.

“Hmm… I think I might be feeding you more often, then,” Autumn murmured, making Summer giggle again.

“Don’t get too hasty, now,” Summer murmured back, dipping her head to give another lick to the still bleeding bite on her neck. “We haven’t even started yet.”

With that said, Summer let out of her hands creep around between her and the time traveler, making her take a deep breath as the Vampire’s fingers brushed against her thigh. Her other hand worked its way up her back, bracing the smaller woman enough to let her lean back a little without fear of falling out of her lover’s lap.

Summer kissed Autumn’s neck again, lapping up what little blood had was spilling from her earlier bite as she moved her hand still further. Autumn moaned, wrapping her arms more tightly around Summer’s shoulders as she felt her fingers play over her lower lips. With a single smooth, dexterous motion, Summer plunged a finger into her, making her moan again – a moan which swiftly turned into a drawn-out groan as that one thrust found her most sensitive spot.

“Wow. Thought I’d need to do some searching for that,” Summer mumbled against her partner’s neck as Autumn panted in her arms. “Hmm… What to do, what to do?” she continued, lazily pumping her finger into her and intentionally missing that spot by less than a millimeter each time. “Should I make this quick, or draw it out?”

Autumn groaned, making the Vampire laugh. “Whichever you’re more… comfortable with,” she mumbled back, making her laugh again. “Fair warning, though: it’s not that easy to get me off.”

“Hmm… In that case,” Summer said, pulling her finger nearly all the way out – and slipping in another when she slid it back in, as well as brushing them over Autumn’s g-spot and making her moan. “Let’s see if I can shorten that fuse of yours, hm?”

Autumn moaned again as Summer stuffed yet another finger into her, stretching her walls and making sure there was a near-constant pressure on her most sensitive spot. Despite how awkward she’d thought having her hand between them would be, Autumn was surprised at just how slowly Summer made each thrust until she realized she’d started rolling her hips in time with the motions of the Vampire’s wrist. She groaned, cheeks flaming, and let her eyes drift shut, allowing herself to simply bask in the pleasure coursing through her instead of trying to turn the tables on her.

It was difficult. With every second that passed, Autumn’s need to prove her worth, her strength, her dominance, grew stronger. She was sure that Summer had noticed it; the silk-soft hand keeping her back straight had found its way to her hair at some point and gently inclined her neck back, giving the Vampire even better access to the bite she’d given her – which, Autumn realized, had stopped bleeding at some point.

“Wow, you were right,” Summer said after a few minutes, her brow furrowing as she met Autumn’s eyes. “You really do have a long fuse.”

“T-… Told you,” Autumn murmured breathlessly, smirking despite the little line of drool trailing from the corner of her mouth. With a giggle, Summer leaned up and licked it from her chin, then used her tongue to part Autumn’s lips and give her another kiss.

With her mind occupied, Summer ran her thumb over her lover’s stiff clit – and sent her over the edge.

Autumn’s head lolled backwards, her eyes closing as utter ecstasy hammered through her, making her whole body warm and tense. A brittle wail left her lips the instant her lips and Summer’s were no longer together, only to be cut short when her head was forcibly tilted forward and the Vampire kissed her yet again. Her hips instinctively rolled against her partner’s hand, grinding her motionless digits into the pussy clamping down on them and prolonging her orgasm for a moment longer.

After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, Autumn collapsed forward, the motion breaking their latest kiss and letting her gasp for air. She felt too warm – and regretted taking off her sweatshirt – but also felt too cold, a familiar symptom of her afterglow that had, in the past, driven her to continue long past her chosen lovers’ capacity to handle her. So, instead, she simply rested her head on Summer’s shoulder, catching her breath as the Vampire gently and idly massaged her back with a single hand.

“Holy f-fuck,” Autumn mumbled after a few moments, making Summer giggle again. “That was… Yeah, I’m definitely… feeding you again. Tomorrow. Or the next day,” she added, drawing yet another laugh from her.

“The next day, sweetie,” Summer said, planting a kiss on her lover’s forehead. “I don’t like to feed on the same person two days in a row. They start to get sick if I do that, and I don’t like that.”

“Right, right. Makes sense,” Autumn said, letting out a sigh as her breathing steadied. After another moment, she sat up straighter and kissed Summer again – a much more chaste kiss than their previous ones, merely a brush of lip against lip – before she shakily rose to her feet. “So, ah… I know that people having sex generally wind up sharing the same bed afterwards, but… uh…”

“But you have body heat issues and would like to sleep in separate beds?” Summer asked, prompting a hesitant nod from her recent lover.

“Yes, exactly. Sorry.”

“It’s no big deal. If you want, the next time I talk to Ruby I can ask her for something to help with that.”

“That’d be… I wouldn’t want to impose any more than I already am, but…”

“Oh, don’t worry, Autumn!” Summer said, standing up and wrapping her in a hug. “I bet Ruby’d be happy to make it for you. She’s always happy to show off what she learned in college, and if I tell her that this would make me happy, too, she’ll be even happier.”

“Th-… Thank you, Summer.”

*             *             *             *             *             *

“So, what’s the plan for that?” Mercury asked, gesturing to the portable drive with his fork. He and Vernal had joined Summer and Autumn in their room the next morning for breakfast, crowding the relatively small room.

“Well, my first time around, I needed to learn about the Pact of Salem in order to gain the power of a god,” Autumn said, scowling at the stick-like device. She sighed, then turned her gaze to Mercury and added, “However, I still remember most of the relevant portions, so nothing on there should be of any real use to us.”

“Huh? Then why’d we steal it?” Summer asked, frowning. Instead of the trays of food that everyone else had in front of them, Summer had a laptop displaying a few local news articles. She’d already informed her small team that the theft had been noticed by the local authorities and the nobleman’s house guard – though she’d decided against mentioning how Lord nir’Vochel had been rushed to a hospital in a comatose state less than an hour ago.

Vernal snorted out a laugh, rolling her icy blue eyes as she swallowed her latest bite. Her short brown hair was still damp from her recent shower, and she wore a plain T-shirt and shorts instead of her usual ensemble – though that didn’t stop her from wearing her collar, as well; the thin length of supple black leather stood out against her neck and made Summer frown every time she noticed it. “The fact that we have it isn’t important,” she said, wiping a smear of icing from her lips and licking it off her finger. “It’s the fact that it was stolen that’s important here. Right, Autumn?”

“Exactly,” Autumn said, nodding at her. “The device’s theft means that the… Didn’t I tell you this last night?”

“We did many things last night,” Summer said cryptically as her cheeks turned pink, prompting a few laughs from Mercury and Vernal.

“Anyway, unless anyone has a use for this?” Autumn asked, picking up the portable drive. After everyone else had shaken their heads, she dropped it into her glass of water, then asked, “Vernal, would you be so kind?”

“My pleasure,” Vernal said, sporting a smirk as she pointed a finger at the glass. Electricity arced from her finger to it, quickly causing the chilled liquid to begin boiling – and shorting out the storage device.

“Now that’s done,” Autumn said, lounging further back in her chair, “I think that our next stop should be… Hmm.”

“What’s wrong?” Summer asked, cocking her head to the side.

“Originally, I went to Atlas after this,” Autumn said. She frowned, shook her head, and added, “But I’m not quite sure where I’d have gone if someone from the future had been thwarting my nefarious schemes every step of the way. We might have to stick around to see what happens with Cinder before we go any further.”

“We could split up,” Mercury suggested.

“Not possible,” Vernal said immediately. “Our group’s barely large enough to support Summer as is. We’d only be able to split off one person, and even that’s a bit of a stretch.”

“If this wasn’t something that deserves discretion, I’d have Ruby contact Queen Willow through her daughter, but we shouldn’t be mentioning our activities over anything that could be as easily monitored as a Remora’s uplink,” Autumn thought out loud.

“Well, Ruby’s only a week away from being allowed to join the Guild,” Summer pointed out. “If I tell her that she should drop in on Weiss and check in with her in person, she’d be in Atlas. Then, if Raven’s still with her, she can open a portal to me and get you there in a hurry. She’d be able to send you back here, too, if I stuck around.”

“Hmm… That’s not a bad idea,” Autumn said. “Good thinking, Summer,” she added, making the Vampire beam at her. “Okay, we’ll stay here to keep an eye on things until that becomes an option, then. At that point, we’ll assess the situation and see what needs to be done. Does everyone agree?”

“Yep.”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh!”

“Then it’s settled.”


	4. Chapter 1: The First (Uneventful) Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny accompanies Ruby, as well as Raven and Emerald, on the first mission of her career - which leads to her practically collapsing just from the walk. At the end of the day, Ruby feeds on Emerald, then conjures up a cock so she can give her a blowjob.

“Okay, everyone, let’s take a quick little break. Okay?”

Penny all but collapsed as soon as the words left Ruby’s mouth.

Raven Branwen turned and opened her mouth to protest, but when she saw Penny leaning heavily on her Dhampir caretaker and trembling from the amount of effort the relatively short walk had required of her, she shut it again and nodded.

Penny sighed with relief as the crimson-eyed older woman turned back around, her hair – as black as her namesake’s feathers – bounced against the back of her red-and-black haori at the motion. As Ruby half-carried her to a nearby tree and helped her sit down at its foot, she watched Raven lean against a different tree and fold her arms over each other, her red-dyed steel vambraces making the seemingly nonchalant gesture awkward.

She still found it hard to dissociate the seemingly straight-edged warrior who cared enough about her daughter’s half-sister – as well as said half-sister’s adoptive sister – to accompany her on their mission from the red-faced woman moaning deliriously as she pleasured herself in front of a camera. Penny regretted whatever decision she’d made that had led her to watch that video as her first experience with porn.

“You okay, Penny?” Emerald asked, her voice briefly startling the Synthoid; the dusky-skinned woman had long ago learned how to mute her presence to the point that she did it by instinct, something that continued to surprise Penny.

“Y-Yeah, just… tired,” Penny mumbled, feeling her cheeks warm. “I’ll be fine in a few minutes, I promise.”

“Take your time, okay?” Emerald asked, smiling gently as she closed her eyes and cocked her head sweetly to one side.

She looked almost exactly like Penny remembered: red eyes, light green hair, a pair of shin guards that hid much of the legs that her shorts left exposed, a pair of tops that had to be worn together to give even a semblance of modesty. Even her weapons, revolver-like firearms with sickle-like blades chained to the barrels, were the same. The only differences were from a few years spent growing into herself, a pair of small scars on her cheek, and her ears being narrower than Penny remembered.

“S-Sure,” Penny mumbled, shaking thoughts of the world she’d left behind from her mind and instead focusing on recovering from the two miles they’d walked so far. Not for the first time, she wondered if it would be easier to gauge when she needed a break if she was able to breathe, but she shook that from her mind as well after a moment. “C-Can we, uh… Can we go over this again?” she asked, glancing up at Ruby.

“Huh? Why?” Emerald asked, frowning.

“Outside of operations involving stealth and the like, it is rarely a poor idea to reaffirm what the mission’s objectives are, Emerald,” Raven said.

“Still, don’t we all know it by now?” Emerald asked.

“It couldn’t hurt to repeat it,” Ruby said, shrugging a shoulder and smiling gently at her adoptive sister. Emerald sighed, then nodded, and Ruby turned her gaze back to Penny. “Anything in particular you want to focus on, Penny?” she asked.

For a moment, Penny was once again struck by the resemblance. Despite having deliberately altered her outfit to lessen it – wearing a long-sleeved white blouse, a black-and-grey overbust corset, a pleated black skirt with a pattern of red plaid, and a pair of translucent red leggings, as well as the red cloak she refused to go without – this Ruby couldn’t _help_ but look like the Ruby Penny remembered.

Once the memory had passed, Penny mumbled, “W-Well, uh… Our general objective, maybe?”

“Sure thing. So, we’re headed to a small mountain – more like a hill, really – that has a similarly small network of caves in it,” Ruby began. “The mountain sits right in the path of a ley line, meaning that mana flows through it pretty much all the time; some of the mana gets caught in the stone of the mountain and starts to crystallize, forming… well, crystallized mana. Our objective is to go there, kill all the Wilds in the area, and pick up any mana crystals that are six inches or longer.”

“Why only those?”

“That’s… That’ll take a minute to explain,” Ruby said, sheepishly scratching at her cheek. After taking a moment to think, she continued, saying, “Okay, so, the short of it is that Wilds are attracted to mana in general, but this ley line is weak enough that it usually only attracts weaker Wilds. If we let mana build up in increasing densities – such as by neglecting to collect the larger crystals – then stronger Wilds will start showing up, which could turn into a huge problem for everyone back home.

“As for why we’re only collecting the larger crystals, Wilds will keep showing up to bask in the ley line and get stronger no matter what,” Ruby continued. “The Guild would have to send people out on extermination missions every couple of weeks anyway, whether they’re gathering mana crystals or not, because the Wilds would only get stronger the more mana they’re exposed to. That would be a very bad thing.

“Because Horus is the closest town to the ley line, the guild-hall there handles this mission. I know the woman in charge of the guild-hall, and she’s super pragmatic about these sorts of things. She believes that the more consistent payday associated with gathering crystals helps incentivize rookie adventurers to take a relatively low-risk job, which _keeps_ the job low-risk when it’s done often enough.

“So, back to us, our goal is to head in there, grab any crystals that are big enough, and deal with any Wilds we find,” Ruby finished, giving Penny another smile. “So, was that long enough, or do you need another few minutes?” she asked, making Penny blink at her before she realized what Ruby was talking about.

“Oh, right. Um…” Penny mumbled, trailing off as she dug into her diagnostic routines; though the programs still seemed odd and unfamiliar, she was able to identify them and use them reasonably well. After a moment, she shook her head and said, “I-I, uh… I think I still need a bit longer, Ruby. Sorry.”

“Well, in that case, how’re you liking those clothes?” Ruby asked. “Do they still feel okay?”

Penny smiled and stifled a giggle as she looked down at her attire, happy to turn her mind to something else. A dark green dress met her gaze, its lack of shoulders making the straps of her light grey bra readily apparent; its skirt only fell to her thighs, but she wore a pair of shorts beneath it to help preserve her modesty. Much like her nearly knee-high leather boots, the dress was much more utilitarian than it first appeared; both the dress and boots had a few pockets, though most were currently empty.

What’s more, the reminder about her clothing also reminded her about her hair; she’d been allowed to start growing it out now that she was free of the Stellar Industries facility, and though it didn’t even reach her shoulders yet, she knew that she’d be able to start curling it to match her old body’s hair before long.

“Yeah, they still… Yeah,” she said, laughing outright as Ruby let out a giggle as well.

“Better than the clothes SI gave you?” Ruby asked, prompting another giggle from Penny.

“Definitely. Those barely fit.”

“And how’s that sword feel on your back? Not too heavy?”

Penny’s smile became brittle at the reminder. The sword was simple and unadorned save for a slender length of dyed-green leather wrapped around the hilt, which was long enough that Penny could wield it with both hands if she wanted. Its guard was relatively small, only two inches to each side, and the blade – similarly short, at only twenty inches long – was ever-so-slightly curved, more than a katana but less than a scimitar.

“The scabbard’s probably the heaviest part,” Penny mumbled, drawing another laugh from Ruby. It was true – the wood sheathing the sword’s blade was made of oak, and the leather straps keeping it on her back were held together by thick metal clasps. “Why did you give me this, again?” she asked after a moment, making Ruby laugh yet again.

“Well, you said you used swords before. Not in the same way, from what you told me, but it’ll still be more familiar to you than anything else,” Ruby said.

“That still doesn’t mean I’d be any good with it if I needed to fight someone.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we know a really good swordsman, then,” Ruby said, smiling pointedly over at Raven, who sighed. “It would be a good way to keep her exercising, you know,” she added before Raven could flatly refuse.

“It would still take time, Ruby. And, speaking of time, I believe that’s all the time we can spare for a simple break,” Raven said, pushing herself off the tree she’d been leaning against and returning to the middle of the road.

“Oh, I, uh…” Penny mumbled, trailing off as Ruby offered her a hand. Taking it, she stood up shakily – far too much so, given the way Raven frowned at her.

“Don’t worry, Penny. I’ll just carry you for the next few miles,” Ruby offered, startling her. “Here, Emerald – can you carry my backpack for a bit, please?” she asked sweetly, making the darker-skinned woman sigh and smile as she took the pack from her.

“Ruby, I weigh nearly three hundred pounds! How…?” Penny began, only to trail off when she saw Ruby turn around and squat down, holding her hands out behind her. After a moment and with a heavy, defeated sigh, Penny obliged, wrapping her arms around Ruby’s neck and resting her thighs in her caretaker’s hands.

With a grunt of effort, Ruby stood back up, hunched forward slightly to better accommodate Penny’s weight on her back. “See? Nothing to it!” Ruby said brightly.

Raven sighed at the display, then rolled her eyes when she noticed the jealous look Emerald was giving the two of them. “Come on, then,” Raven said, fighting the urge to sigh again. “Let’s try to get there before the sun sets, at least.”

*             *             *             *             *             *

“That’s it, there,” Ruby said in a mumble, pointing out the hole at the mountain’s base. Penny – piggy-backing on her again, exhausted from walking another two miles after they’d taken their lunch break – tiredly followed the direction of her gaze and found herself blinking in wonder at the multi-colored glow coming from the cave. “Mount Yarrow.”

The mountain itself was – like Ruby had said earlier – rather small, its peak only three hundred feet above the lightly forested terrain surrounding it. The grey stone, marbled here and there with lines of yellow crystal, stood out from the darkening sky as it caught the setting sun’s light.

“Wow,” Penny mumbled, blinking repeatedly to keep herself from crying; she found it amazingly, wondrously beautiful.

The others found it mildly pretty, and started putting together their campsite while Penny rested, staring at the mountain. Before long, the four of them were sitting around a campfire, the tent they’d brought set up on the side of the road as they waited for a pot of water to boil.

“So, children,” Raven began, sitting in such a way that Penny had to force herself not to look up the older woman’s skirt, “what is your plan?”

“Huh?” Ruby asked, blinking, as she looked up from the plastic package of freeze-dried soup mix she’d been idly reading the nutritional information off of. “Oh, well, uh… I just thought we’d go in, kill everything in the first room, loot that room, and then keep doing that until we were done with the mountain.”

“The classic adventurer’s play,” Emerald said, chuckling as Ruby tossed a playful scowl her way.

“Is that all?” Raven asked, raising an eyebrow as Ruby blinked at her again. “You’re going to be fighting in enclosed spaces. Wilds are attracted by certain noises – such as _gunshots_ ,” she added, making Ruby grimace and glance down at the weapon she wore on her lower back. “Surely I don’t have to put the two together for you.”

“Okay, so, we’ll have to plan on drawing out as many of them as possible, then,” Ruby said, half-mumbling as she smiled sheepishly at the older woman. “One of us will go into the first room, take a shot at the first Wild we see – or at the floor, if we don’t see any – and get back out. Emerald and I will gun down anything that comes out at us; once ten minutes or so pass without anything attacking us, we’ll head in and start harvesting crystals.”

“Better, but you’re forgetting something, Ruby,” Raven said, turning her gaze to Penny. “There are _three_ of you.”

“Oh, I, uh… I was kind of planning on leaving Penny out of the fighting,” Ruby said, her cheeks warming as she briefly met Penny’s eyes. “She’s still getting a handle on controlling her mana, and she’ll probably be super sore after all that walking today.”

“Oh?” Raven asked, raising an eyebrow at Penny. “Then why are you here? Why is there a noncombatant on a team of adventurers? Why would you split your pay equally with someone who isn’t contributing to the mission in any capacity?”

“Why do you think I don’t know how to use my mana?” Penny asked before Ruby could answer any of Raven’s questions, surprising both of them. She lifted a hand, showing them the misty green light that she could gather around it, and said, “I can only exercise a little bit each day, so I’ve had a lot of free time to study, yes, but I can’t do that all day, every day, either. I’ve had enough practice with this that I can at least _throw_ some at something, if you need me to.”

“Well, that changes things, then!” Ruby said brightly, grinning broadly enough that Penny blushed and lowered her hand, letting the mana sink dissipate harmlessly into the air. “Have you been practicing with your other mana types, too?”

“Uh… Mana types?” Penny mumbled, her blush deepening as Raven sighed.

“You remember that watch-thing they stuck on your arm? The one with the little meters in a bunch of different colors?” Ruby asked. When Penny shrugged, she said, “Oh, right, we did that the day after you woke up, didn’t we? Well, that was measuring the different types of mana you produce naturally. About two-thirds of your mana was raw, untyped, grey – there’s a lot of different names for all of them, and those are for the, well, untyped mana.”

“Is it… normal? Having that much of that?” Penny asked.

“Yeah,” Emerald answered, surprising the redhead; she’d been quiet for long enough that her presence had been all but erased from Penny’s mind. “It’s actually more common than not for someone’s untyped mana to be that high, and it’s incredibly rare for anyone to have less than a third of their mana be untyped.”

“Yep!” Ruby practically chirped, beaming gratefully at Emerald; it was enough to make the collared woman blush. Turning back to Penny, she added, “You’ve also got significant amounts of electric mana and some sort of refined earth mana. I think it’s probably metal-aligned, given how you’re a Synthoid and all.”

“Refined mana?” Penny asked, tilting her head to the side.

“It makes casting spells of the specific ‘refined’ element easier and more efficient, but also makes it harder and less efficient to cast spells outside of that grouping. Specialization always has a cost, you know,” Emerald said, nodding her head sagely.

“She’s talking from experience,” Ruby said, making Emerald sigh and hang her head. “She’s got a bunch of perception mana, but it’s refined towards causing hallucinations, so she had to practice a bunch to do anything else with it.”

“And even now, it’s hard,” Emerald mumbled, scowling halfheartedly at Ruby.

“O-Oh,” Penny mumbled. She stared into the crackling fire between them for a moment, then shook her head. “I see. It will be difficult for me to learn how to use magic I don’t have the right mana for, right?”

“Exactly.”

“So, uh… Not to pry or anything, but… what types do you have?” she asked, looking at each of the women sitting with her.

“Is that really…?” Emerald began, only for Raven to cut her off.

“Yes, Emerald, it is,” the older woman said, making Emerald huff and fold her arms over her chest. “Knowing what your allies’ capabilities are can be essential to succeeding in battle. To answer your question, Penny,” she continued, “in addition to raw mana, I have ice, motion, and polymorphic mana. I also have some small amount of electric, fire, and water mana, but not enough to use them outright; I only have enough of those types to make converting them from grey mana more efficient.”

“I also have some motion mana, though most people here call it ‘kinetic’ mana instead,” Ruby chimed in, noticing the way Penny had frowned during Raven’s statement. “The type of ‘motion’ mana Raven has is usually called ‘transport’ or ‘teleport’ mana.”

“Oh,” Penny said, nodding slowly. She repeated the words in her mind, making the effort to memorize them – even though there was little need.

“In addition, I have something extra-special: anti-mana,” Ruby said, a light flush of color rising in her cheeks at her admission. “Its other names tend to be things like ‘counter’ mana or ‘negation’ mana, but it’s… Well, you know how when matter and anti-matter touch each other, they sort of wipe each other from existence?”

“Explosively,” Penny said, her tone flat save for a barely noticeable edge of fear.

“Well, okay, so it’s not _much_ like that,” Ruby confessed, wearing an embarrassed smile that made Penny giggle. “It _does_ undo magic by wiping the mana powering it from the world, though, so it’s _kind of_ like that. It also sucks to have, though, because it means I’ve got a lot less mana to work with than most people,” she added with a sigh. After a moment, she added, “Well, it is super useful in this profession, though, and makes artificing easier since I can essentially redo enchantments without permanently infusing the item that I’m working on with a dud enchantment, but it still causes problems sometimes.”

“That’s… I’m sorry to hear that, but…” Penny trailed off, glancing between Ruby and Raven. “That’s a big difference in the number of different types.”

“Oh, well, yeah,” Ruby said, shrugging. “She’s got more experience with more spells; she’s had time to develop those extra types. I’ll probably wind up developing some natural healing and perception mana after a while, since I use those a bunch; maybe a bit of polymorphic mana, too.”

“Wait, why would you get poly-…” Penny began, only for Emerald to cut her off.

“Water’s boiling,” Emerald chimed in, startling Penny.

“Oh, quick, where’s the ladle?” Ruby asked, looking around for it. Raven handed it her wordlessly, making her smile brightly at the older woman and say, “Thank you, Raven!”

Once Ruby had siphoned out enough hot water to make tea for all of them, Raven poured in the powdery soup mix, salted meat, and freeze-dried vegetables that they’d soon be eating. A minute later, she accepted the mug of steaming, leaf-infused water from Ruby, thanking her with a nod as she blew on the scalding liquid.

Ruby handed another mug to Emerald – “Thanks,” the dusky-skinned woman said – and set her own down by her legs before mixing another powder into the one she’d prepared for Penny, making the redhead curious.

“What’s that?”

“Hmm? Oh, this?” Ruby asked, stirring it in as she looked up at her. “It’s a vitamin mix that’s supposed to help build muscle, eliminate fatigue, prevent soreness – you know, a post-workout supplement.”

“Oh, right,” Penny mumbled, glancing down at her legs – which still ached from the few miles she’d managed to walk on her own, though she’d figured out how to exploit the programming available to her to dull the pain somewhat and had activated what she referred to as her “self-repair subroutine”. “Thank you, Ruby,” she mumbled, blushing lightly as she was handed the mug of tea.

“Careful: it’s hot,” Ruby warned her. “And make sure you eat plenty, too. Oh, and I’ve got an electric mana-crystal, too, so I can give you some electricity as a sort of dessert, okay?”

“Y-Yes,” Penny said, feeling almost overwhelmed by everything Ruby had just said – as well as the new information she knew she’d wind up forgetting most of by morning.

“Speaking of dessert,” Emerald said, giving Ruby a lazy, almost feline smile as she drew the Dhampir’s attention, “do you want me today, or Raven?”

“She’ll be taking you,” Raven said, pretending not to notice the way Penny’s eyes widened and cheeks reddened. “I’m mostly here as a safety net, so you’ll want to get used to doing things without considering me going forward. For tonight, that means you’re her ‘dessert’ for the night, Emerald.”

“Yep!” Ruby said brightly, making Emerald chuckle and Raven shake her head. “I’ll try not to take more than I need today, though,” she added, momentarily confusing Penny until the Synthoid realized they were talking about Ruby’s need to drink blood. “We’ve got plenty of exercise to do in the morning, and I’d rather not have you all anemic for that.”

“As long as you still take enough, Ruby,” Emerald said, reaching out and laying a hand on hers. “You’ve got an annoying habit of trying to deal with all of your problems by yourself.”

“What? No, I…”

“Yes, you do,” Raven cut Ruby off. “You get it from your mother, in more ways than one.”

“Okay, fine,” Ruby said, huffing exaggeratedly – though she let her hand stay beneath Emerald’s, rather than folding her arms over her chest like she clearly wanted to do. “We’ll use your judgement for when we’re done, Emerald.”

“Thank you, Ruby,” Emerald said sweetly.

*             *             *             *             *             *

Emerald let out a sigh of relief when Ruby pulled away from her neck – at Emerald’s insistence, she’d stayed there for nearly a full minute past when she’d thought she was done – leaving the pair of small cuts the Dhampir had made exposed to the chill air within the tent. She sighed again when Ruby covered it almost immediately with a hand, sending a warm pulse of mana into her skin to repair it with a minor healing spell.

“Thank you, Emerald,” Ruby mumbled, smiling timidly at the dusky-skinned woman whose lap she was sitting on.

“You don’t need to thank me for this, Ruby,” Emerald said, wearing a smile of her own.

“Yeah, that too, but… I mean for coming with me,” Ruby said. She licked her lips, looking away as she added, “Without you – and Raven, and everyone else – I wouldn’t be able to do this. Go out and be an adventurer, I mean. I’d be stuck at home, hoping that I’d be able to make enough friends that I wouldn’t have to spend a fortune on blood bags. Thank you,” she repeated, her cheeks turning pink as she kissed Emerald’s cheek, “for letting me live my dream.”

Emerald blushed as well, embarrassed by the genuine, heartfelt thanks from her adoptive sister. “Ruby, I… You’re welcome,” Emerald said, wishing she could think of something better to say. After a moment, she hugged Ruby, trying to tell her everything she had a hard time putting words to with the embrace.

Ruby stifled a giggle and readily returned the hug, resting her chin on Emerald’s shoulder as she said, “I love you, Emerald.” When Emerald tensed at that, Ruby did giggle, making the red-eyed woman scowl at her.

“You just _had_ to ruin the moment, didn’t you?” Emerald asked in a light murmur – though the kiss she planted on Ruby’s cheek told her younger sister that she didn’t mean it.

“Well, since I’ve already _ruined_ it,” Ruby said, giggling again as Emerald sighed, smiled, and rolled her eyes, “how do you want to handle this next bit? We can’t take a ton of time, since we’ve got to keep watch out here, but we can still do some stuff if you want.”

“Well, uh, could we do… you know,” Emerald said, blushing again as she waggled a finger.

“Sure, we can do that,” Ruby said, planting another kiss on Emerald’s cheek. “Should I give it to you, or to me?”

“I was thinking me.”

“Are you sure? We don’t have enough time for you to get it back if you get set off early,” Ruby said, making Emerald sigh again and blush further.

“I know, but… Well, you owe me after embarrassing me by saying such sappy things!” Emerald said, her voice returning to its usual half-haughty and mildly sarcastic tone. “Since you’ve got first watch, I don’t really want to do anything that’ll inconvenience you much, but… uh, well…” She trailed off, blushing again.

“You just like the way my mouth feels on you, don’t you?” Ruby asked with a laugh, making Emerald lightly shove her. “Okay, okay. One blowjob, coming right up,” she said, rising to her feet and giving Emerald the space she needed to tug down her shorts – revealing her feminine sex, a well-trimmed patch of light green pubic hair, and the utter lack of a penis.

Much like she had to patch up the scratches she’d bitten into Emerald’s neck, Ruby lowered her hand to her adoptive sister’s pelvis, her eyes closing as she concentrated on converting raw mana into enough polymorphic mana to mold the spell. With an exhale, she let the mana leave her hand and sink into the skin above Emerald’s labia, making her shudder and groan as her flesh contorted beneath the spell. It wasn’t painful – preventing pain during the transformation was one of the first things Ruby had figured out how to add to the spell – but it was far from pleasant.

Only a few moments later, Ruby withdrew her hand, revealing the flaccid cock that her spell had created. The same shade of brown as the rest of her skin, circumcised – Emerald’s preference when she was the one wielding it – and lacking a scrotum, it draped limply over the paler skin of her labia until Ruby wrapped a finger around it and slowly stroked it.

“Does it feel alright?” she asked Emerald, who gave her a smile and a nod. “Any lightheadedness or nausea?”

“No, Ruby,” Emerald said, rolling her eyes. “You ask that every time, and the answer’s always ‘no’. Just face it: you know that spell by heart,” she added, prompting a giggle and a blush from the younger woman.

“Sorry. Okay, well, uh, let’s see here,” Ruby mumbled, pulling an unrolled sleeping bag beneath her knees as she adjusted herself until she was practically on all fours before Emerald’s seated form. “Okay, looks like we’re… Oh!” she exclaimed, grabbing a canteen from her backpack and swishing some of the water around in her mouth.

“Forgot about my blood?” Emerald asked, making Ruby blush again.

“Yeah, sorry. I think that’s everything, though,” Ruby said, once again arranging herself in front of her. She gave Emerald’s recently-made cock a look, then raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Emerald asked, a small smirk appearing on her lips. Meeting Ruby’s eyes, she reached down with one hand and slowly stroked her already erect length as she said, “I can’t help getting this hard when I’m looking at someone as cute as you.”

Ruby, blushing yet again, giggled as she said, “Then it’s a good thing you don’t have one all the time.”

Emerald made a sound halfway between a scoff and a snort, shaking her head as she agreed, saying, “Oh, yeah, that’d be bad. Or fun. Or both.”

“Probably both,” Ruby agreed with another giggle. Before either of them could say anything else, she shooed Emerald’s hand away from her cock and replaced it with her own, idly measuring it in comparison to her fingers and finding it was the six inches she’d designed it to be.

Without any hesitation, Ruby lowered her head and gave the very tip of her adoptive sister’s cock a kiss and a slow lick, giggling when it bobbed down and then back up once her tongue was off of it. She wrapped her fingers around it one at a time, mischief twinkling in her silver eyes as Emerald groaned at the slow pace.

Before Emerald could complain, Ruby took the head of her cock between her lips, gently sucking on it and sliding her tongue along its underside at a pace so slow that Emerald would’ve described it as “infuriating” if it hadn’t made her gasp with pleasure. Her fingers, wrapped loosely around the darker-skinned woman’s shaft, started moving at a similar speed, generating just enough friction to send a shiver up Emerald’s spine.

“Ruby,” Emerald murmured, her voice rough. “We don’t have forever, here,” she reminded her, making her silver-eyed lover pout up at her – though the cock in her mouth ruined the effect she was going for.

Ruby sighed through her nose, then pumped her fingers over Emerald’s shaft more quickly, but still with a somewhat loose grip – her silent rebellion against her adoptive sister’s “command” to go faster. She took more of her length into her mouth, as well, her tongue coiling and writhing in a salivating frenzy along its underside as she sucked more fervently; her fangs were spaced far enough apart that they wouldn’t interfere with a blowjob unless the recipient had an absurdly large dick, so neither of them had to worry about any issues related to them.

“Yes. Just like that. Oh, gods, you’re so good at this.” Emerald’s whispered encouragements and the myriad of soft moans that came with them drove Ruby further and further down her cock – only for her to stop when its head butted against the back of her throat. Emerald looked down and met Ruby’s eyes, only to groan at the mischief once again shining in the silver orbs peering back up at her. “Ruby,” Emerald mumbled, moaning again when the name’s owner giggled around her cock and sent pleasing vibrations up her length.

Ruby pulled herself off of Emerald’s cock slowly, sending another shiver up her spine. “Yes?” Ruby asked sweetly, kissing the saliva-slickened tip again.

“Please,” Emerald pleaded, prompting another giggle from her lover. “More. Please.”

“I can’t go too far,” Ruby said, half-teasingly and half-apologetically as she continued stroking the cock still in her hand. “If we get attacked during my shift, I might need my voice.”

“Oh, r-right,” Emerald mumbled around a moan. “At least… At least the tip?” she asked, biting her lip to stifle another moan.

Ruby giggled again, but did as her partner asked, taking the head of her cock into her mouth once again. Her fingers slid along the spit-soaked length much more quickly than before, steadily jacking Emerald closer and closer to her finish; combined with the warmth engulfing her tip, the darker-skinned woman knew that it was only a matter of time before it happened.

“C-Close,” Emerald warned her lover. When Ruby responded with a wink and an even faster pace, Emerald tilted her head back and moaned – only for the motion to send her falling backwards right as she came.

Ruby couldn’t help but giggle at the sight, which led to Emerald’s semen dribbling out from between her lips and onto her chin. She cupped a hand over her mouth, both to stifle the sound and to keep the sweet, citrusy fluids inside. After a moment, she swallowed, then smiled apologetically down at Emerald.

“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled, accepting Ruby’s help sitting up again. She sighed, then gave her a smile. “You’re just as good as I remember.”

“It’s been a while since we’ve done something as normal as this, hasn’t it?” Ruby asked, only to pause and blink when Emerald cupped her cheek with her hand.

“You’ve got something on your face,” Emerald murmured, leaning in to lick her own semen off of her lover’s face. Ruby squeaked and grinned at the feeling of her adoptive sister’s tongue on her chin, then readily returned the kiss that greeted her a moment later.

When they broke apart nearly a minute later, panting, Ruby practically purred as she said, “Thanks for cleaning me off, Emerald.”

Emerald merely groaned, glancing back down at her spell-conjured cock – which was a sorry sight, being completely flaccid and covered in a mixture of her lover’s saliva and her own semen. “I wish I was more normal about this stuff, Ruby; I’d probably have gotten it up again by now,” she grumbled, only for her to stop complaining and sigh happily when Ruby kissed her again.

“Don’t think like that,” Ruby said firmly. “I love you the way you are. So does Yang, and Vernal, and everyone else.”

Emerald smiled, leaning forward and resting her forehead against Ruby’s. “Thanks, Ruby.”

“Anytime, sis. Oh, I should probably get rid of this, shouldn’t I?” Ruby asked, poking a finger against Emerald’s limp dick. A bead of silver light gathered at the tip of her finger, then sank into the flaccid appendage beneath it. Emerald grunted, her mind briefly overwhelmed by the somewhat familiar feeling of her nerve endings freaking out as her penis dissolved into light.

After another quick, comforting kiss, Ruby stood up, stretched her arms over her head, and left Emerald to rest after their brief time together. Once outside, she found that Raven and Penny were exactly where they’d been twenty minutes ago, when she’d first gone into the tent with Emerald.

“Better, but not great,” Raven said, idly commenting on Penny’s form as the Synthoid’s tired muscles tried to work through the motions the older woman had taught her. “Try it again. Without shaking, if you can.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am,” Penny mumbled, lifting her sword into a ready stance before her once more. After a moment, she raised it further, then slowly swung it down in a diagonal slash, stepping into the motion to put more force into it.

“Hmm… No, I don’t think we can do much more tonight,” Raven said, shaking her head. “Be ready to wake up early tomorrow. We’ll get some more practice in before you three go into the cave.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Ruby said, startling Penny enough to make her drop her sword – which only made Raven’s frown deepen.

“Oh, h-hi, Ruby,” Penny said, half-mumbling, as she retrieved her sword and sheathed it, heedless of whatever dirt or debris might have stuck to the blade. “How was, um… ‘dessert’?”

Ruby raised an eyebrow at her, then frowned as she said, “Fine?” After watching Penny sway on her feet for a moment, she turned to Raven and asked, “Is she okay?”

“I’m not overly familiar with Synthoid physiology, but I think so, yes,” Raven said, making Penny blink – she’d only just realized Ruby had been talking about her. “She probably just needs to sleep.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Ruby said, wrapping an arm around Penny’s shoulders and guiding her back to the tent. “Thanks for taking the time to teach her, Raven,” she said, smiling back at the older woman. Raven smiled back at her, but not quickly enough; by the time Ruby saw it, the tent’s opening was closing between them.

Turning to face the tent’s occupants, Ruby felt her eye twitch at the sight of Emerald only now pulling up her shorts – though she did find herself mentally thanking Raven for exhausting Penny so much that the Synthoid didn’t notice Emerald’s state of undress. She didn’t stay long, though; after helping Penny get her sleeping bag laid out properly and retrieve a toothbrush from her thoroughly packed backpack, she left again, returning to the still-crackling fire Raven was sitting beside.

“She has potential,” were the first words out of the older woman’s mouth as Ruby sat down next to her.

“That’s high praise, coming from you,” Ruby noted dryly, drawing a snort of laughter from her.

“I mean it, though. I think she could become a good swordswoman, if properly trained.”

“Who would be around to train her, Raven? I know you’re planning on joining up with Mom again once we meet up with Yang.”

“I suppose I could give her a few lessons when I drop by to check on my daughters,” Raven mused, pulling a giggle from Ruby. “But you’re right, that wouldn’t be enough. She’ll need more than a few hours of training a month to get any real proficiency with a sword, especially the way I use one.”

“Well, we can figure something out,” Ruby said, leaning closer to her and pressing her shoulder against the older woman. “It’s not like there aren’t plenty of online resources dedicated to this sort of thing.”

After a moment, Raven’s arm encircled her shoulders, holding the younger woman loosely. “They aren’t _quite_ the same as learning in person,” Raven noted, drawing a small nod of agreement from Ruby. “They should be able to provide a workable foundation, though, especially if you can get her to practice frequently.”

“With how sore she’ll be feeling tomorrow, that’ll either be super easy or a challenge,” Ruby said. “I doubt she’ll want to feel like that again. Maybe I can convince her by…?” she mumbled, only to trail off. “Nah, I think she’ll be willing to do it,” she added a few moments later.

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“You weren’t there for her PT, Raven. She…” Ruby trailed off again, shaking her head and shifting in her seat so she was pressed more firmly against Raven. “It was rough just to watch; she cried more than once because of how much it hurt or just how little she felt like she was doing. I can’t _imagine_ how she felt through all of that, but she still got up and did it again every day, without so much as a single complaint. Well, okay, _one_ complaint, but that was about the food,” she added after a moment, grinning as it drew a chuckle from Raven.

“Hospital food does tend to lack in flavor, but I’d thought the food at a research laboratory would taste better,” Raven said. “What happened?”

“Well… She _may_ have wanted to try pudding, and I _may_ have wanted to make some for her, but pudding’s _super_ hard to make without screwing up. The eggs wound up cooking before they were fully mixed in, so… it was more like a mass of chocolaty goop splattered on a scramble,” Ruby mumbled, her cheeks warming as Raven chuckled again.

“How did she react when she found out you made it?”

Ruby’s blush deepened, but she managed to say, “She ate it. She even ate some of the leftovers the next day.”

“Then it looks like I’ll start referring to her as your future wife when we’re alone,” Raven said, making Ruby blush and scowl at her. She sighed contentedly, then carefully extricated herself from the clingy young woman beside her, saying, “Well, now’s a good a time as any for me to get in a quick workout. You interested in going a few rounds, Ruby?”

“Not tonight,” Ruby said, smiling as she gestured down at her legs. In a conspiratorial whisper, she added, “Don’t tell Penny, but I’m kind of hurting right now. My back, too.”

Raven nodded. “Very well. I suppose I’ll just… Oh, Emerald, great timing,” she said, smirking as she saw the dusky-skinned woman exit the tent.

“Uh, I hope not,” Emerald said, glancing between the two. “Just gonna grab a quick workout if I can.”

“Perfect.” The grin on Raven’s face said it all – as did the way she drew the sword at her hip. “Grab your weapons, Emerald. Consider this some impromptu ambush training.”

Emerald ducked back into the tent in a hurry, drawing a startled and somewhat muffled yelp from the Synthoid still resting within it. Only a few moments later, she was out again, brandishing her paired pistols as she took aim at Raven.

“Wait!” Ruby called out suddenly, her silver eyes hardening enough to startle both Emerald and Raven. “Use rubber bullets,” she firmly reminded her.

“Already done,” Emerald said, gesturing vaguely with her gun and drawing a sigh of relief from her adoptive sister.

“Good. Thank you.”

As the two older women began their first spar of the night, Ruby returned to the tent to check on Penny and retrieve a few things from her bag. Seeing the Synthoid already half-unconscious within her sleeping bag brought a smile to Ruby’s lips; before she left with the book and nail file she’d wanted, she gently kissed the girl’s forehead, making her murmur wordlessly and crack open an eye.

“Just me, Penny,” Ruby whispered, smiling down at her. “You just looked so cute I couldn’t resist.”

Penny sighed, a blush rising in her cheeks as she murmured, “Okay. Night, Ruby.”

“Good night, Penny. Sweet dreams.”


	5. Chapter 2: The First Job, Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After completing their first mission as adventurers, Ruby winds up delivering so much exposition to Penny that even she gets sick of it, and decides to go down on her while watching an old video of Velvet to lighten the mood.

The next day, Penny woke up to find that the fatigue she’d been feeling the night before had vanished, leaving behind a vaguely unpleasant soreness in its place – mostly thanks to the self-repair function she’d discovered early on – but she found even that disappearing beneath the bright smile and cheerful “Good morning!” Ruby greeted her with. She’d missed most of the pre-breakfast events, including a Raven sparring with Ruby as Emerald prepared their breakfast.

Not long after they’d finished eating, the four gathered up their gear and stared into the open mouth of the cave at the mountain’s base. Raven, Penny noticed, seemed relaxed, one hand on her sword more as a concession to the younger women than anything else; Ruby, almost in contrast, seemed utterly serious, her weapon at the ready as she waited for Emerald to return. Penny licked her lips and swallowed, trying to ignore the knot steadily forming in her gut; she felt helpless, a state that the former android designed for combat was unfamiliar with.

When a gunshot echoed up at them from the depths of the cave, Penny jumped, startled. Barely ten seconds later, Emerald came jogging out of the cave and gave a hand signal to Ruby, who hefted her weapon higher and pointed it over Emerald’s shoulder.

The thing that came out behind her was far more human-like than Penny expected; she’d known, from the descriptions she’d read over her time spent mostly bedridden, that Wilds were more “human-like” than “humanoid”, but that didn’t prepare her for what looked like a naked man with a thick reptilian tail and a pair of horns running at them. It even had a penis, though – much like the rest of it – it leaked a thin trail of black miasma, marking the creature as a monster.

Before Penny could recover from her shock, a fist-sized hole appeared in the Wild’s chest, courtesy of a thunderous shot from Ruby’s Crescent Rose. It tumbled, more miasma leaking from the newly-made hole as its internal organs dissolved.

But then two more Wilds appeared behind the first’s steadily dissipating corpse, each bearing exaggerated traits marking them as inhuman and trailing that same black miasma.

Ruby worked the lever on her rifle, chambering another of those powerful rounds, so Emerald turned to face the two newcomers. She fired a shot from each of her pistols, piercing the larger Wild’s fur-covered legs and drawing a painful scream from it as it collapsed to the ground. The next two shots tore through its head, dropping it nearly as easily as Ruby’s next blast dropped its companion.

“You doing okay, Penny?” Ruby asked in a murmur, glancing at the sword the Synthoid held in a tight, inexpert grip. Penny, following her gaze, blushed and loosened her grip.

“Y-Yeah, I’m… It’s just… Not what I’m used to,” Penny mumbled, flinching as Ruby fired again, taking out a fourth Wild as soon as it entered her line of sight. “The Grimm are… more monstrous than Wilds.”

“I remember you telling me that,” Ruby said, giving her a quick, comforting smile before taking another shot into the cave – and grunting as sparks flew up behind the partially serpentine creature, signaling a missed shot. It slithered towards them faster than most people could run, its four arms spread wide to its sides as it closed the distance between them – only for one of the sickle-like blades of Emerald’s weapons to pierce one of its shoulders, making it gasp in pain.

“Stage two!” Emerald told Ruby as she tore the blade from the Naga, causing the creature to let out an ear-piercing scream. The Naga darted to the side, narrowly avoiding being wrapped in the chains connected the blade to Emerald’s gun, only to find that Ruby had extended her Crescent Rose into its true form – and brought the blade of her scythe tearing down through the Wild’s skull.

Over the course of the next minute, six more Wilds were handily dispatched by Emerald and Ruby’s combined efforts. After another minute passed without another Wild emerging from the cave, Emerald reloaded her guns. More time passed, and Ruby swapped her Crescent Rose’s magazine for a full one.

After a full ten minutes had gone by without a single Wild appearing, Ruby said, “Well, I think that means we’re good for now. Should we go in?”

Upon receiving nods from Emerald and Penny – and a raised eyebrow when she looked to Raven – Ruby gestured for Emerald to head in first; since the darker-skinned woman’s smaller weapons were better suited to close combat in a confined space than Ruby’s, she readily agreed, turning on the L-shaped flashlight she’d pinned to her top as she headed in.

It didn’t provide much light, though; Penny wondered why they felt that would be enough. By the time she’d decided to voice that thought out loud, though, they’d made it to the first distinct “room” beneath the mountain.

A clearly man-made dome shape, the walls of the cavern were lined with chunky growths of crystals in a myriad of different colors, many of which gave off a dim luminescence that cast the limestone walls in a display of hues and rainbows that would’ve taken Penny’s breath away if she’d had any to take. The room was barely more than twenty feet from the cave’s entrance, but the twisting of the tunnel between them locked it off from the early morning daylight; combined with the meager glow from the crystals, there was barely enough light for Penny to see by.

“Let’s see, now,” Ruby mumbled, her voice echoing oddly throughout the dome-shaped area as she dug a folded map out of her backpack. “Hmm… Okay, so this room,” she said, poking at a colored circle on the map, “probably didn’t hear that first gunshot, so there might still be Wilds in it. Should we take a moment to gather some crystals and catch our breath, or should we go there right away to make sure we aren’t ambushed, first?” she asked Raven.

The older woman smiled, put a hand on her hip, and replied, “You’re the team leader here, Ruby. Make the call.”

“Not until I know what my team wants to do,” Ruby said, fighting the urge to roll her eyes as Raven’s smile widened into a smirk. “I’m not going to pretend that I know everything, Raven. I don’t always have the best ideas, and I want to know if the people around me have better ones.”

“Good. In that case, I’d advise eliminating all potential hostiles before committing to gathering resources,” Raven said, continuing to smirk at the younger woman.

“Emerald?” Ruby asked, turning to her second-oldest ally.

Emerald shrugged, saying, “We’ll need to have someone on guard duty while we’re chipping off crystals, anyway, but there’s also not a lot of point in saving the Wilds for last if we’re supposed to take them out anyway. Your call.”

“Penny?” Ruby asked, surprising the youngest member of her team as she turned to her.

“Me? Uh… Well, uh, we should scout the caverns before we do anything, right?” Penny asked, making Ruby blink at her. “Whether there’s more of them or not, we need to see where everything is, right? To make sure we’re not going to cause a cave-in or anything?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ruby said, sheepishly scratching her cheek. “Good call, Penny. I didn’t think of that. Okay, we’ll take a look at the rest of the rooms and take note of the terrain, what walls are load-bearing and the like. Everyone stay on guard; keep an eye on the ceiling and any hiding spots you can think of.”

Mere minutes later, when the four of them made it to the area Ruby had marked on the map, they found a considerable amount of rubble blocking their way into the chamber, as well as the easily identifiable spot where the ceiling had collapsed over the entrance. After Ruby spent another five minutes telling Raven how she’d move the broken stone if it had just been her, Emerald, and Penny, Raven accepted Ruby’s request and opened a small portal in the floor beneath it, startling Penny as the older woman sent the pile of rubble outside the mountain.

It was a noisy process, alerting the entity within the chamber. Ruby caught sight of it less than halfway through Raven’s teleporting the stones outside; incidentally, that also made Penny very aware that all of her comrades’ eyes were better than hers when it came to darker environments. She could only vaguely make out the shape of the man-sized spider-like Wild dwelling atop the ceiling of the next room, and that was only because it was perched on top of a particularly bright set of crystals.

It skittered away moments later, whatever noises it might have made drowned out by the rocks grinding and clacking together as they fell through Raven’s portal. Once the dust settled and the four of them walked into the room with weapons at the ready, there was no sign of it.

“Okay, that’s worrying,” Emerald noted, her voice calm despite her readily apparent anxiety; she looked around nervously, a frown tilting her lips as she worriedly examined every nick and cranny of the irregularly shaped room.

“I don’t think it’s on the ceiling,” Penny reported, pointing a flashlight straight up. She’d been given the light after wondering aloud how any of them could see anything in the ambient darkness, and Ruby had told her that she’d explain later, when they were done clearing the cavern of Wilds.

“Okay, I have an idea,” Ruby said, removing one hand from her weapon and molding a ball of silver mana into the air above her palm. “Emerald, when I say ‘now’, I want you to hit the entire room with one of those ‘cacophony’ spells you like. Is that okay?”

“Sure thing,” Emerald said. Unlike Ruby, there was no visible light emitted as she wove her spell together, a clear sign of experience with finesse and control.

“Ready?” Ruby asked. At Emerald’s nod, she said, “Now!”

Penny had not been prepared. “Cacophony” was an apt descriptor for the flashing lights of a hundred different colors that suddenly filled her vision, for the bursts of distinct sounds that filled her ears, and the myriad of pokes and pin-pricks and gentle caresses that brushed over her skin. She cried out and stumbled, falling to the ground blindly, only to find that the spell had faded a moment later as a wave of silver – the same silver as the mana Ruby had held – crashed over her like a wave.

The null-mana had dispelled the spider-Wild’s invisibility, as well, revealing that it had what looked like a human’s upper body mounted atop where the spider’s face should have been. Its human eyes blinked repeatedly, clearly trying to recover from the same distorted senses that Penny had suffered from, and it covered its face with an arm as it hissed in irritation.

Before anyone else could so much as move, Emerald had leveled her paired pistols at the Wild and opened fire, sending small spurts of blood and miasma from the human torso growing from the spider. It screamed in pain, but was quickly silenced when Ruby – who Penny hadn’t seen move – decapitated it with a lunging swing of her scythe.

“Good work,” Raven said, striding casually into the center of the chamber. Penny, noticing the worried glance Ruby gave her, stood back up shakily, still feeling disoriented by Emerald’s spell. “Now, we can get to harvesting.”

*             *             *             *             *             *

“So, uh, there’s something I’ve been wondering,” Penny said in a soft voice, making Ruby pause in her latest measurement of one of the spikes jutting from the crystalline mass they were slowly taking apart.

“Ask away!” Ruby said, keeping her voice just as quiet as Penny’s; although she was curious – and eager to break up the monotonous task with some conversation – she knew that Penny wouldn’t be whispering if she wanted Emerald and Raven, who were standing guard at the chamber’s entrance, to overhear them.

“Well, uh… Those fights, with the Wilds. You stayed back and just shot them.”

“Yeah? And?”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do that instead of running in and fighting them up… Oh, right,” Penny mumbled, cheeks warming as she came to the realization on her own. “The people of this world don’t have Auras.”

“Huh? Oh, wait, I remember now. Those are the… short of personal-defense shielding things that souls manifest in your world, right?” Ruby asked in returning, drawing a tiny nod from the Synthoid. “Yeah, our souls don’t do that here. We have to rely on armor, spells, and enchanted items to do anything like that, but they can be pretty expensive to get.”

“Even the spells?”

“Not all magic is available online, and manipulating mana isn’t super-easy to describe,” Ruby explained as she set down the measuring tape and picked up a handheld saw. She had to raise her voice as she continued so Penny could hear her over the sound of sharp metal cutting through crystal, but she said, “Everyone’s got their own little quirks that go into it. Some people tie their emotions to their spellcasting; others try to take them out of it. Some people use incantations to focus their thoughts in order to cast more efficiently, but others visualize what effect they want, but even the way those work isn’t universal; some people picture the effect itself while others aim for the end result, instead.”

Penny just nodded, trying to bake what Ruby had said into her memory. “So, uh, other than using a ranged weapon,” Penny began to ask, gesturing vaguely at the compacted sniper rifle that rested on a magnetic clip on its owner’s belt, “how do you do it?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not wearing armor, so…”

“Oh, I’ve got a bracelet for that,” Ruby said, turning off the saw and setting it – and the length of crystal she’d carved off – to the side before rolling down one of her sleeves and revealing a simple, unadorned silver bangle. It looked like nothing special to Penny, but Ruby shook it emphatically as she continued to speak. “Shielding enchantments tend to be a bit complex, since they have to be reactive to be mana-efficient. This one has a detection field about ten feet wide, meaning that it detects anything moving towards me above a certain speed. When it does, it activates a sort of forcefield that dampens kinetic damage and repels non-kinetic damage – kind of like an Aura, actually.”

“I thought you said those were expensive,” Penny asked, half-mumbling.

“Not when you make them yourself!” Ruby said brightly. She picked up the measuring tape again and turned back to the crystal, but gave Penny a wink and a grin as she said, “It’s what I went to college for, after all. It’d be a shame not to use it.”

“You… Huh?” Penny asked, prompting a giggle from the Dhampir. “But… you’re only twenty, right? How did you…?”

“Oh, uh, well,” Ruby mumbled, smiling bashfully as color rose in her cheeks. “I may have skipped a few grades, and then finished got my degree a year and a half early.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really have anything better to do with my time,” Ruby said defensively, her cheeks turning an even brighter shade of pink. “I only need a couple hours of sleep a night, and I wasn’t allowed to play video games while everyone else was asleep, and I blew through books too quickly for that to be enough to fill all that extra time, so I just studied my butt off. Learning’s still pretty fun, even if it’s not video game fun.”

Penny continued staring at her for a moment longer, but Ruby’s awkward gesture made her realize that it was her turn to cut off a crystal. Picking up the saw, she said, “I knew you were smart, but… Wow. When did you finish college?”

“A couple years ago; a couple months after I turned eighteen,” Ruby said, half-mumbling, as Penny got to work on the crystal she’d measured. “I thought about getting a BS in mechanical engineering, too, but the classes I had left to get that degree looked super boring. Since I’d already gotten my BS in artificing, I just decided to call it quits early.”

“I see,” Penny mumbled, making a mental note of the fact that people could earn degrees in at least one magical pursuit in her new world. “But… Well, with you needing to drink blood and all…?” she tried to ask, though she found herself trailing off as she was unable to put her question into words.

“Oh, well, there’s stuff for that. Dhampirs and Vampires who do well enough in high school can get into scholarship-like programs that give us two or three pints of blood a month while we’re at college. Plus, I had Yang with me.”

“Your older sister, right?”

“Yeah. She didn’t want to keep up with school herself, but she came with me when I went to help keep me fed; she even got a job as a waitress to help our folks afford the apartment we needed.” Ruby giggled, smiling wistfully as she took the crystal Penny had just cut free and put it in the metal-reinforced canvas bag with the others. “She even helped me do all the studying I needed to skip into her year in elementary school, too, and then worked her butt off to keep up and stay with me when I skipped ahead another year.”

“She did?”

“Mm-hmm. She’s… Well, don’t get me wrong: Emerald and Vernal are awesome, too, but… By the time they were part of the family, Yang and I had already started high school together. We’ve been together our whole lives, really.”

“So, uh…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Ruby said, rolling her eyes and giggling at Penny’s nervous attempt to point out that Yang wasn’t with her right then and there. “We’re going to be meeting up with her soon, though, remember? Plus, I talk to her a couple times a week. Modern technology’s cool like that, after all,” Ruby added, patting the pocket she kept her Remora in.

“Okay. So, uh… Something else I’ve been wondering,” Penny said as the two moved to another mass of crystal; they’d just finished cutting the lengthiest bits from the one they’d been working on. “How is it that you – you know, you and Emerald and Raven – how can you all see in this cave?”

“Now _that’s_ the question I’ve been expecting,” Ruby said, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Yeah, that’s a species-related thing. Some have it, some don’t. Dhampirs, Elves like Emerald, and all the Faery derivatives – meaning Raven – have something that makes them better at seeing in dim light. Some Dhampirs and most Vampires can even see in complete darkness.”

“Okay,” Penny said, taking a moment to process the information before asking, “What do you mean by ‘Faery derivatives’? Is that related to that advancement stuff?”

“Yeah. Basically, well, most people are born in what’s known as a ‘base species’,” Ruby began, raising her voice as she began to cut at the crystal. “Dhampir, for example, is a base species. That means that its capable of advancing into a more refined state, so I could become a Vampire some day if I fulfill the requirements.”

“Requirements?”

“We don’t call it ‘advancement’ for nothing, you know. If you meet the requirements, you can advance; it’s… harder to simplify further than that, really, especially since pretty much every distinct species has their own requirements to trigger an advancement. To use myself as an example, I could advance into a Vampire if I feed off of at least six different people at least five times each within a… I think it was a forty-day period? Something like that. Oh, and I’d have to feed on them in person; for some reason it doesn’t work if I just drink from a blood-bag.”

“Really? How does that work? The advancement process itself, I mean.”

“Well, for Dhampirs specifically, advancing into a Vampire results in… I think it was two weeks of being pretty much bedridden during the day, being _extremely_ sensitive to bright light, and needing close to a pint of blood every day in addition to our normal diets. After that, though, Vampires need even less sleep – something like needing only, like, four hours in one shot every week – and they don’t need to eat anything other than blood, which they only need the same amounts as a Dhampir takes.”

“Wow. That sounds… Are you planning on doing that someday?”

“Maybe someday. Two weeks is a long time to go without any income, after all, especially for adventurers,” Ruby said, drawing a surprised blink from Penny. “What? We have to work _hard_ to make our money, and risking our lives is a regular part of most missions we could take. Living paycheck to paycheck isn’t the sort of thing most people recommend, which is… you know, thinking about it, it’s probably why the guild doesn’t hire anyone younger than twenty.”

“Huh?”

“Well, most people finish high school at eighteen, right? But two years isn’t long enough to finish college… Well, not for most people,” Ruby said, blushing again as she gave Penny a sheepish smile. “Anyway, that means most people planning to become adventurers get a job between high school and joining the guild, letting them build up a bit of money to use if something goes wrong early on. And it gives them some work experience to fall back on if they have to retire young, too.”

“Huh. Yeah, that makes sense,” Penny agreed, needing to raise her voice as Ruby started cutting another length of crystal.

“Do you have anything else you want to ask? We’ve got the time,” Ruby offered.

“Sure. Uh…” Penny mumbled, questing for another question. When she found one, one that she really wanted to know the answer to, she blushed deeply – especially when she realized just who she could see out of the corner of her eye. “Uh, so… About R-Raven…”

“Ah,” Ruby said, fighting back a smile and not quite succeeding. “I had a feeling this was coming.”

“So, uh… Y-Yeah.”

“You want to know why she made that video?”

Penny couldn’t voice her response, so she nodded instead, her shoulders hunching when Ruby finished cutting off the crystal and switched off the saw.

“Well, like I said, adventuring isn’t really that much of a ‘money-maker’ profession. So, people supplement their income in other ways. Some people consider adventuring more of a part-time job while they work on a more involved career, others write books or for movies and stuff so they can make money through royalties and stuff, and others do porn,” Ruby said, shrugging a shoulder as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

“R-Really?”

“Yeah. I don’t know all the details – or even all that much, really – but I know that Raven had to be convinced to do it, which is why there’s only a couple of videos she’s in,” Ruby added, measuring another spike. Before she picked up the saw again and started cutting it, she paused, then said, “And I won’t be forcing you to do that sort of thing, either, if that’s what you’re wondering. I might ask you to at some point, but I’d make sure you were actually okay with it, first.”

“Th-That’s… Thanks, I-I guess,” Penny mumbled. Ruby nodded as she started cutting again, and Penny searched for another question to ask – but her blush only deepened as she realized just what she was thinking about now. “S-So… about Raven…”

“Yeah?” Ruby asked, glancing at her only briefly before looking back down at the crystal.

“S-She’s your… your s-step-mom?”

Ruby sighed, then nodded while shrugging a shoulder. “You know, you’d think we’d have better words for all those sorts of things by now,” she commented idly, flashing a smile at Penny. “Polygamy’s been legal here for… somewhere around a thousand years, I think? And we still don’t have good terms for stuff like ‘the mutual wife of your biological mother and father’.”

Penny giggled, drawing another smile from Ruby. “Y-Yeah, that’s something that c-could use a word.” She paused, swallowing, as she wondered if there was anything else she could think of asking at the moment. “Uh… Don’t, uh, don’t judge me for this, okay?” Penny asked in a half-mumble, cheeks turning bright red as Ruby gave her a look. “But, uh, well… While I was doing my, um, ‘independent research,’” Penny said, referencing the amount of time she’d spent online, looking things up pretty much at random, “I-I found some stuff on, uh, n-notable t-taboos.”

“Okay, well, consider me curious to see where this is going,” Ruby said when Penny paused, flashing the timid Synthoid a toothy grin.

“W-Well, I, uh… So, uh… So you, and R-Raven, a-and… a-and Yang…”

“Oh, you’re asking about incest?” Ruby asked bluntly, startling Penny enough to make her squeak. “Yeah, that’s not a big deal for Varyn. Our genes are so messed up from having so many different species in our recent ancestries that inbreeding can only do good things, you know.”

“I-I… I’m n-not sure that’s how it works,” Penny pointed out, only for Ruby to shrug.

“It is here,” Ruby said, shrugging as she put the freshly cut crystal into the bag with the rest. “Honestly, as long as no one has to go to the hospital and you’re not dragging anyone underage into anything, no one really cares who or how you like to screw.”

“O-Oh… Th-That’s…”

“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t understand,” Ruby said, forcing herself to give Penny a small smile. “It makes sense. People where you’re from don’t have to share hormones just to stay sane. We do; it makes relationships take on different tones, I think.”

“Oh. R-… Right.”

For a few minutes, they continued their work in relative silence, with nothing but the whirr of the saw and the occasional question about measurements breaking it. Then, Ruby had an idea, one that immediately made her both hopeful and nervous.

“H-… Hey, Penny?”

“Yeah?”

“You know how, uh, well… You know how you don’t really have much experience with, well, with sex?”

“Uh… Y-Yes?”

“I think I know a way to help with that. If you want to, I mean.”

“I… I think I’d have to hear it, first.”

*             *             *             *             *             *

“Welcome home!”

Penny once again found herself surprised, though her exhaustion from the journey back to Horus smothered it. Still, the sight of the older man’s scraggly blonde hair and beard was a welcome one, even though she’d only met him twice so far.

“Any trouble?” Taiyang Xiao Long asked Raven as he let them inside. Penny had a hard time paying attention to the older woman’s response as she looked around the room.

The staircase beside the entrance hall narrowed the space dramatically, but it didn’t quite feel crowded to the redhead as Ruby half-dragged her up the stairs to her room. She’d known from seeing the house outside that it was three stories tall, but she didn’t realize how much going up the stairs would tire her out, especially given how tired she already was. Floral wallpaper lulled her into a false sense of security as she stumbled the last few paces towards Ruby’s room.

The sight that greeted her inside was at once a surprise and completely expected.

The walls were painted a color that was almost perfectly between red and pink, and the heavy-duty shelves bearing both thick textbooks and a dense collection of manga and Western comics had been painted black. A pair of desks sat in one corner of the room, a thin keyboard and a mouse on each of them, and a set of metal tools Penny didn’t recognize took up nearly half of the space on one.

Though the room was plenty large, there was little space to stand around in. With some hesitation, Penny sat down on the queen-size bed jammed up against a wall, idly noting how soft the blankets were.

“Was that normal, back there?” Penny asked tiredly.

“Back at the guild-hall, you mean?” Ruby asked as she sat down next to her, drawing a nod from the Synthoid. “Probably? I mean, it was my first time turning in a quest, too, you know. Raven didn’t act like anything was out of the ordinary, though, so I guess it was fine, at least.”

They were quiet for a moment longer, but then, mumbling, Penny asked, “Are you sure this is okay? Me staying here, I mean?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Ruby asked, her gentle smile greeting Penny’s eyes when the redhead turned to look at her.

“Wouldn’t SI want me to stay at the compound?”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Ruby said, her smile tilting until it was more mischievous than comforting.

“I… I guess,” Penny mumbled, glancing at the room around them again. “So, uh… This is your room, I guess?”

“Yep. Well, mine and Yang’s,” Ruby said. She leaned forward and took off her boots, seemingly ignoring the look Penny was giving her. “Much better,” she said, sighing with relief as she set them to one side.

“You and Yang shared a room?”

“We didn’t always live here,” Ruby began, giggling. “Like I told you earlier, adventuring isn’t usually the sort of profession people go into to get rich quick. The way my Mom tells it, Raven’s birth control just stopped working one day – it isn’t that unusual,” she added, immediately trailing off as she rolled up a sleeve and showed Penny her bracelet. “BC enchantments need to be touched up every couple of years to keep up with the way our physiologies change as we get older. Kind of like an eyeglass prescription.”

“Um… Ruby?”

“Right, right. Sorry. Anyway, uh, yeah, none of them was ready for Raven getting pregnant with Yang. The way Mom tells it, they spent a couple months traveling to get close to the capital, then had to stop since Raven was having trouble walking long distances. They got an apartment barely big enough for them, had Yang, and had to deal with someone needing to stay behind to take care of a baby. Mom loves being a, well, a mom, but she’s a Vampire, so she’d need at least one person with her – which led to her getting pregnant with me.

“Taking care of two kids is expensive, especially when one of them’s a Dhampir,” Ruby continued. “Mom all but retired at that point to get a more reliable job. The rest of their team, including Dad, Raven, and Raven’s brother, Qrow, sort of took turns adventuring after that, with one or two of them staying with Mom to help take care of me and Yang. Money was always tight back then, though, so they couldn’t afford anywhere big like this,” she said, gesturing to the room around them. “So, Yang and I shared a room for a long time. When our parents could afford a bigger house, we… well, I…” She trailed off, blushing.

“You didn’t like the idea of having your own room?” Penny asked, giggling as Ruby nodded and smiled sheepishly.

“Yeah. I’d just jumped past the 2nd grade back then, so I was a smart little brat at the time. Yang was a _lot_ more level-headed about it than I was,” Ruby said, scratching her cheek in what Penny was beginning to learn was a nervous habit. “But, uh, yeah. We’ve shared a room for pretty much our whole lives.”

Penny nodded absently, not sure what she could say in reply to continue the conversation. But the memory of what they’d agreed upon earlier drove her to speak anyway, so she said, “S-So, uh… H-How should we… you know…?”

“Oh, uh, well… Oh, well, one thing worth asking before we start: do you need to use the bathroom?” Ruby asked, gesturing towards the door that led to her room’s attached bathroom.

“Uh… I don’t think so,” Penny said seriously, frowning as she tried to assess her body’s functions. “I think I’m good, at least for now,” she reiterated, shrugging a shoulder.

“Okay, that’s good. Well… Hmm…” Ruby said, trailing off as she tried to think of how to start. After a moment, she said, “We could always just, you know, sort of just start. If it’s ever too much for you, you could tell me to stop. Same rules as last time, you know?” she asked, smiling comfortingly at the redhead.

Penny nodded, swallowing nervously as she unbuttoned her boots and tugged them off, then did the same with her socks. She pulled off her dress, too, leaving her clad in only a bra and the shorts she’d worn in rebellion against her dress’s short skirt. She moved to remove her bra, next, only to find that her shaking fingers couldn’t catch the clasp well enough to undo it.

As Penny undressed, Ruby worked to connect her Remora to one of the monitors sitting on the desk facing the bed, then went online and cued up the video she wanted to play. It took a bit of doing, partly because of the relatively old tablet’s slow load times, but she got it done. Turning back to Penny with another gentle smile, she sighed, amused, at the sight of the Synthoid fumbling with her bra.

“Want some help?” Ruby asked, sitting down beside her again and making Penny freeze.

“N-No, I…” Penny mumbled, biting her lip. After a moment, she added, “Actually, uh… Remember how last time, when you… You know…?”

“You want me to strip down, too?” Ruby asked, her smile widening as Penny blushed further and nodded. “Okay!” the Dhampir exclaimed brightly, swallowing a few giggles as she removed her cloak and reverently hung it on a hook dangling from the ceiling – which Penny was startled to find that she hadn’t noticed _at all_ in the _minutes_ they’d spent in her room.

“So,” Ruby continued to speak as she undressed, “here’s a bit of background for the video: in high school, we get what’re called ‘pen pals’; we’re supposed to talk to them over video calls a couple times a week. We get one in the grade above us and one in the grade below us, and my above-grade pen pal is in med-school so she can become a general physician. But, because of student loans and all the costs related to living alone, she needed some income.”

“Uh,” Penny mumbled, giving up on her bra for the moment – she still hadn’t managed to get it off – and shifting to take off her shorts. “I think I can see where this is going,” she said softly, blushing again when she revealed her underwear.

Unlike the utilitarian grey of her bra, her panties were mostly white and edged with bright green; she’d gotten them on one of the few occasions she’d gone shopping with Ruby, having felt drawn to them for their resemblance to the outfit she’d worn on Remnant.

“Well, yeah. It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?” Ruby asked with a giggle. As she stepped out of her skirt, she continued, saying, “Anyway, Velvet kind of got into more fetishistic stuff as she went on – she wound up with an audience that likes that sort of this – so I’m showing you one of her earlier videos. It’s not super-high-quality, but it’s pretty vanilla, especially compared to what she gets up to now.”

“O-… Okay,” Penny said, nodding as she nervously folded her underwear and set them to one side. That left her with just her bra, which she returned her fingers to in an effort to get the clasp undone.

“Oh, here,” Ruby said, smiling as she leaned in to help – making Penny realize just how quickly she had gotten undressed. Her pale breasts shook like gelatin in front of Penny’s eyes as the Dhampir reached behind her and undid her bra, nearly pressed up into her face. Unfamiliar instincts made her lips part and her mouth water at the sight of those soft nipples so close to her mouth, but they were pulled away from her mere seconds later as Ruby giggled and lifted Penny’s bra triumphantly. “Ta-da!” she exclaimed, bouncing on her heels – and making her breasts bounce and jiggle again.

“Th-… Thanks,” Penny mumbled, her cheeks bright red as heat rushed through her and settled in her face, her chest, and between her legs – but then she noticed it. “Wait, what’s…?” Penny began, frowning, as she looked at the small scar on Ruby’s abdominals. Only three inches long, the perfect line of scar tissue was stark white in contrast to the slightly-tinted skin surrounding it.

“Huh?” Ruby asked, following her gaze. “Oh, that? Well, that’s… You know what?” Ruby asked suddenly, a small blush appearing on her cheeks. “How about I tell you later, okay? It’d take a while to explain, especially if I have to explain some of the stuff that goes along with it, so… Later?”

“Uh… Sure, I guess,” Penny said, forcing herself to give Ruby a small smile. “I’ve got to admit, though: I’m even more curious now,” she added as Ruby sat down next to her and giggled again.

“Well, let’s see if I can distract you a bit,” Ruby said with a smile of her own. She picked up a remote from the end table beside the bed and pressed a button, then fiddled with the volume as the video began playing far too loudly. “Sorry; Yang likes her music loud and I don’t use the sound system much,” she apologized to Penny, who’d been startled by the wall of noise that seemed to physically press against her ears.

“It’s f-…” Penny began, only to trail off and stare wide-eyed at the screen – and at the face she recognized on it.

_“Hello!”_ said the nineteen-year-old Velvet Scarlatina, the rabbit ears atop her head drooping down to shade her face as she tinkered with some setting on the camera. _“Just give me a second… Okay, there we go!”_ she said brightly, sitting down on the bed behind her.

Velvet was silent for a moment, giving Penny a moment to assess the utterly naked woman’s figure. With chocolaty brown hair that draped down her back, eyes of a similar shade that glimmered with a mixture of excitement and anxiety, and a steadily growing blush on her pale cheeks, she was quite the looker – an opinion Ruby seemed to share, judging by the smile on her face when Penny glanced at her. Velvet was a slender woman, much like Penny herself, but while Penny was slender in a girlish way Velvet had more than a little curve to her hips, bust, and rear, enough to make the redhead feel a bit envious – which was yet another thing she found startling.

After a moment, Velvet’s cheeks reddened further and she cleared her throat, saying, _“Sorry, everyone. I’m still used to having someone to talk to when I’ve got a camera pointed at me.”_ She smiled faintly, only for it to immediately fall from her face as she realized how that could be taken, given the situation. _“Not like that! I meant that… Oh, forget it,”_ she added, her ears drooping further as she nervously wrapped an arm around her chest.

It was a bizarre experience for Penny – so much so that she was startled once again when she felt Ruby’s hand on her arm. “She’s a Sylph – they don’t really have anything special other than some inherent wind mana – but those ears are something she had to go out of her way to get. She’s had bad hearing in her normal ears since she was little, so she needed new ones anyway; they’re also why she got interested in medicine to begin with.”

Just how casually Ruby presented the fact that Velvet’s ears were the polymorphic equivalent of a hearing aid, combined with the blushing naked woman on the screen in front of her – and the gently kneading fingers making their way up to her shoulder – nearly overwhelmed Penny, but she simply swallowed and nodded, processing it to the best of her ability as the scene continued.

_“Okay, so, um… Last time,”_ Velvet began to speak again, though Penny found it hard to listen with Ruby’s hands – both of them now, she realized – sliding across her skin, _“I didn’t have anything I could do, really. Sorry about that, again, but that was because I’ve only been in my new apartment for a week, now._

_“But!”_ she exclaimed brightly, her blush briefly leaving her as she smiled at the camera. _“I managed to do some unpacking today – and look what I found!”_ she half-sang, pulling out something from beneath the bedsheets that managed to confuse Penny.

“It’s called a dildo,” Ruby explained in a murmur, stifling a giggle at the look on the Synthoid’s face – and then another as her breath on the redhead’s ear made her shiver. “Most aren’t that big, though.”

Given how tall she remembered Velvet was – at least in Remnant; she assumed that she’d be the same height in Draekiel, too – Penny guessed that the translucent, pink, and glistening replica penis was at least a foot long.

Velvet continued to speak, but Penny missed most of her diatribe – she was too busy adjusting to the hands that had moved to her breasts. Sounds she couldn’t quite place left her lips as Ruby gently kneaded the subtle swell of flesh and the stiffening peaks atop them, heat suffusing her body as the Dhampir shifted behind her and pressed her chest against her back.

And all the while, Penny kept her eyes on the brunette on the screen.

_“But enough of that,”_ Velvet said, shaking her head as another light blush settled on her features – evidently, she’d had enough of explaining the circumstances behind her move. _“Let’s get to what you came here to see, okay?”_

Without another word, Velvet – still quite clearly embarrassed – enthusiastically lifted the rubber phallus to her lips and wrapped them around it. Penny was startled to hear a moan leave the Sylph’s lips, her eyes drifting shut as she licked and sucked the toy deeper into her mouth.

“Everyone has something they like,” Ruby whispered to Penny, using a pair of fingers to trace circles down the Synthoid’s chest as they watched and listened to the years-old video. “You’ll probably find something you like just as much, one day.”

Penny whimpered wordlessly, recalling the state she’d been in the last time Ruby’s fingers had been on her. So, with that in mind, she focused as much of her attention as she could on the brunette fellating the oversized dildo as she felt Ruby’s digits drift closer and closer to her sex.

Just as Velvet noisily pulled her lips from the synthetic cock, Ruby’s fingers reached Penny’s slickness. _“Sometimes I think I like this a little bit too much,”_ Velvet admitted to the camera, though Penny barely heard her through the jolts of warmth echoing up her body. _“But, other times…”_ Velvet said, only to trail off as she looked back down at the dildo. Without another word, she took it back into her mouth, swallowing half of its length in a display that startled the Synthoid viewer.

Ruby giggled in Penny’s ear, clearly paying at least as much attention to the video as she was paying to Penny’s body – which was a considerable amount, the redhead managed to think before the sensations building beneath Ruby’s hands drove that thought from her mind. Still, Penny was glad to realize that she could think; it was an improvement over how she’d reacted the last time they’d done this.

Ruby kissed Penny’s neck from behind, her own breasts – and the stiff nipples atop them – squishing against the Synthoid’s back as she murmured, “Remember: you can always tell me to stop, and I will.”

Penny nodded, opening her mouth to reply – only for a heavy moan to leave her lips instead. She managed to wonder how her voice simulator could be that affected by Ruby’s ministrations before her eyes went wide as the Dhampir slid finger inside of her.

Ruby stilled her hand for a moment, letting Penny adjust to the presence of having something inside her, but Penny’s eyes were locked on the screen before her. The speakers relayed another of Velvet’s dildo-muffled moans as the bunnygirl-Sylph slipped a pair of fingers into her own sex and began needily humping them as she hungrily sucked and licked the dildo in her mouth. Penny licked her lips at the sight, wondering if she’d ever want to try something like that, and then glanced behind her at Ruby and nodded.

Ruby giggled at the gesture – she’d been planning on waiting for nearly a minute before continuing – but followed her lover’s instruction anyway, slowly rolling her wrist to slide her finger nearly out of Penny’s slit before sliding it back in just as slowly, pulling a drawn-out groan from the redhead. Soon, Penny found herself leaning back in Ruby’s arms, a never-ending cascade of moans and whimpers leaving her lips, as the two of them watched Velvet give in to her desires and set the dildo upright on a special mount.

Velvet quickly straddled the fake cock, grinding her sex against it and moaning into the empty air. But soon even that wasn’t enough to satisfy her, and she raised herself up above it until its rubber head was positioned right at the entrance to her pussy.

Though Penny could barely recognize it, given the small scale of the screen, Velvet blushed as she paused and looked straight at the camera. _“Sorry,”_ the Sylph mumbled, barely audible enough for the camera’s microphone to pick up. _“I just can’t hold myself back any more.”_

With that said, Velvet dropped down an inch, her already curvy thighs seeming even wider as she squatted onto the rubber phallus and took its head inside of her. A pleasured gasp burst from her lips, loud enough that her blush deepened as she clapped a hand over her mouth; a nonstop stream of delighted whimpers pushed their way out from beneath her fingers as she slid the rest of the way down, filling her utterly with nearly a foot of synthetic cock.

Penny was transfixed by the sight, even through the haze of her own pleasure. Although she’d seen some porn before, none of what she’d watched had given her a good angle of what she’d really been wanting to see: the belly of the person being penetrated. She found it baffling that there wasn’t even the slightest bit of stretching visible in Velvet’s abdominals, despite having something so long so deep inside of her.

But, then, her mind was gone. It was all too much: watching the undeniably stimulating sight before her, with one hand on her breast and another between her legs, with the warm, loving embrace of the woman she cared for the most, Penny found herself tensing up.

Though it had happened once before, Penny still thought of her orgasm as a foreign sensation. Considering it stole through her and left her slumped against Ruby, a haze of warmth, pleasure, and contentment settling over her senses, she felt she had good reason to believe it.

“Wow, and I thought you were tight before,” Ruby mumbled into her ear, making the Synthoid blush again. She withdrew her finger from her partner’s pussy, her smile widening as she showed her the clear liquid covering her digits. “And juicy, too. Let’s see how you taste,” she added, bringing her hand to her lips before Penny – wide-eyed and mouth agape – could protest.

Penny found herself warming in a mixture of shock and embarrassment as Ruby tasted her vaginal fluids; she knew that oral sex was a thing that existed, but hadn’t quite put that together with ingesting another person’s fluids, even though she knew Ruby needed to do something similar just to keep herself fed.

“Mm,” Ruby moaned, making a show of it as she wrapped her tongue around her finger and sucked it clean of Penny’s juices. “Sweet and fruity,” she murmured with a smile. “Almost like a banana, but there’s something else there, too. Hmm… I might need a second taste just to find out what it is.”

Penny stammered wordlessly for a few seconds, making Ruby need to stifle a giggle as her cute, freckled cheeks just grew redder and redder. Finally, she managed to say, “W-What do you… What?”

“Well, the video’s about twenty minutes long,” Ruby said, pointing at the screen – which, Penny realized upon looking back at it, Ruby had paused at some point. “You could keep watching it as we go a bit further, if you want. Or we could just watch it and not do anything else, or we could find something else to do. I’m sure you’d be happy to take a shower before dinner, especially after what we just did,” she listed, smiling gently at the Synthoid. “It’s your choice, Penny, and you’ve got enough time to think it through.”

Penny licked her lips again, her blush leaving her cheeks after a few moments as she mulled over her options, but it took her less than a minute to decide. “W-Well, uh… I-I mean… Yes,” she mumbled, her voice barely audible.

“Yes?” Ruby asked, frowning. But then she straightened, that smile reappearing on her face as she asked, “To the first thing?”

“Y-… Yes.”

“Okay, then, Penny,” Ruby said, kissing Penny’s cheek and drawing a startled squeak from the nervous young woman. “Same rules apply, okay? You can tell me to stop at any time and I will. Okay?”

“Y-Yes, Ruby.”

“Okay, then!” Ruby exclaimed brightly, gently extricating herself from her seat behind Penny. She cast her eyes around her room for a moment, then shrugged and went over to her closet, which she pulled a cushioned foam pad from. Penny found herself curious when Ruby sat the pad in front of her, only to realize what it was for when Ruby kneeled on it – the floor was hardwood, which would hurt to rest her weight on for a long period of time. “You ready, Penny?” Ruby asked, beaming up at the redhead.

“Uh… Y-Yeah,” Penny mumbled, nervously nodding her head.

Ruby giggled and nodded back, then reached up and pressed a button on the remote she’d left sitting next to Penny, starting the video again.

The immediate moan from the bunnygirl startled Penny, drawing her eyes back to the screen. _“Oh, fuck, yes,”_ Velvet hissed out, her eyes crossing as she rolled her hips and ground the dildo into her sex. “ _Oh, I needed this,”_ she mumbled, briefly glancing at the camera before moaning even louder than before – though Penny didn’t have the experience to tell if she was faking for the audience or just that into there _being_ an audience.

Those thoughts were purged from her mind when she felt warm air brushing against her lower lips, and she looked back down to find Ruby letting out a breath over them. With a giggle and a wink up at her partner, Ruby softly kissed Penny’s labia, making Penny let out a moan of her own.

“Hmm… I think it might be kiwi,” Ruby mumbled to herself. Penny, upon realizing what the Dhampir was talking about, blushed more brightly than ever before – quite the accomplishment – only to moan again as Ruby teased at her entrance with a finger. With just a glance up to make sure Penny was ready, she slid it in, starting off with a slow rhythm that let her find her lover’s most sensitive spots – and avoid them.

Still, despite – or perhaps because of – the attention being paid to her lower half, Penny found her eyes inexorably drawn back up to Velvet on the screen. In the bare few moments she’d spent glancing down at Ruby, Penny found that Velvet had spun around, her back arched in a way that presented her plump posterior to the camera. She’d abandoned the slow rolls of her hips in favor of a rapid bouncing, one that made her butt jiggle in a way Penny found almost hypnotic, as well as exposed her wrinkled anus and just how covered the dildo was in feminine lubricant.

Velvet tilted her head back and groaned, letting her hair fall down to brush the top of her heart-shaped rear as she bounced on the dildo. _“Oh, gods, Ruby,”_ Velvet murmured, so softly that Penny wasn’t sure she’d heard her correctly. _“Fuck, yes! Ah!”_ she suddenly wailed, her motions coming to an abrupt halt as she came.

The sound also signaled Ruby returning her mouth to Penny’s folds, drawing a gasp from the redhead and making her look back down at her Dhampir caretaker. With one finger languidly pumping away inside of her and a tongue brushing along her lower lips, the inexperienced Synthoid found herself approaching another release. She looked back up at the video for reasons she didn’t understand, only to find her orgasm all the faster for the stimulating sight of the bunnygirl slowly pulling herself off the floppy dildo.

This time, she felt it fully. All the waves of heat and the tensing and releasing and misfiring of nerves and muscles alike, making her body shake and her hips instinctively buck against her lover’s finger – they flowed through Penny all at once, leaving her a shivering, sweaty mess lying exhausted on the edge of Ruby’s bed.

“Well,” Ruby began with a broad smile, reaching up to pause the video again, “how was that? Better than before, or…?”

“Better,” Penny managed to find the energy to say. She glanced up at Ruby as the Dhampir rose to her feet, only to find herself blushing again – somehow, she’d forgotten that her caretaker had been naked the entire time. Add in the clear fluids she could clearly see on her face, and Penny covered her eyes with her arm and wondering if she could pretend that they were sensitive to the light.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Ruby said happily. After a few moments, Penny felt her lay down beside her, the Dhampir’s warmth an impossible-to-miss presence against her. “We can keep taking things like this, if you want. Trying something new but relatively small while you watch someone doing something a bit more thorough, I mean. How’s that sound?”

“I, uh… C-Can I answer that l-later?” Penny mumbled, curling up slightly as Ruby giggled beside her.

“Sure thing, Penny,” Ruby said, wrapping an arm around her. “We’ve got plenty of time."


End file.
